Carolyn Shelby

Google is gaslighting the entire SEO industry about JavaScript. I have the receipts. This week Google removed the "Design for accessibility" section from their official JavaScript SEO documentation. Their reason? JavaScript rendering is "no longer a barrier" for Google Search. I nearly choked on my coffee. I manage SEO across hundreds of properties. I see what actually happens when Google tries to render JavaScript sites. Every single day. This is the fifth update to the same document since December 2025, part of a systematic campaign to replace broad cautions with specific technical guidance Here is what I see that Google apparently does not. Content behind tabs, accordions, and "load more" buttons? Completely invisible. Google does not click. Google does not scroll. Google does not interact. That content simply does not exist for them. Structured data injected via JavaScript? Random. Google's own documentation on developers.google.com admits that JS-generated Product markup makes shopping crawls less frequent and less reliable. I see it break constantly. Images loaded through JavaScript? Good luck getting those indexed. Lazy-loaded images behind interaction events are a black hole. Internal links rendered via JavaScript? Onely proved Google needs 9x more time to crawl JS pages than plain HTML. Nine times. Their experiment showed 313 hours for JS versus 36 hours for HTML to reach the same depth. A 2024 counterpoint study by Vercel/MERJ found most pages rendered within minutes. And here is the part nobody is talking about. AI crawlers cannot render JavaScript at all. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot. They see raw HTML only. Onely's 2025 research estimated about 70% of modern websites may be completely invisible to AI search because of JavaScript dependencies. So Google removes the warning. Developers lean harder into client-side rendering. And what happens? Sites become more dependent on Google's proprietary rendering pipeline while going completely dark for every competing search and AI system. Convenient timing. Google is not telling you JavaScript is fine because it is fine. Google is telling you JavaScript is fine because it benefits Google. Server-side rendering is not optional. It never was. Do not let a documentation update convince you otherwise. Sources: 1. Barry Schwartz, "Loading Content With JavaScript Does Not Make It Harder For Google Search" Mar 5, 2026 2. Google Developers, JavaScript SEO Basics (the removed section) 3. Google Developers, Structured Data with JavaScript (the shopping crawl admission) 4. Vercel "How Google handles JavaScript throughout the indexing process" Jul 20224

Required reading from @cshel as usual. If SEO is rocket science, AI SEO is astrophysics searchengineland.com/seo-rocket-sci…

SEO panic headlines: 😱 Actual story: 🤖 Google isn’t killing SEO. AI is raising the bar. Opening keynote at SMX Paris 🇫🇷 risingmedia.swoogo.com/SMXPAR26 #SMXParis

On Feb 24 join @AlexMoss and I for the next #SEO Update by @yoast . We cover the latest in SEO & AI developments both good and bad. Join us! (I think it'll be on X live, but if not, it's definitely also on LinkedIn Live) linkedin.com/posts/yoast-co…

If SEO is "rocket science", AI SEO is astrophysics. Understanding the shift from rankings -> retrieval -> entity authority 👇 searchengineland.com/seo-rocket-sci…

“La difesa contro le allucinazioni non è l’ottimizzazione. È lasciare meno vuoti da riempire.” From a recent interview with an Italian SEO column on GEO, AI visibility, authority, and why SEO shortcuts don’t age well. 👇 roberto-serra.com/news/intervist…

Why SEO Roadmaps Break In January (And How To Build Ones That Survive The Year). via @cshel: hubs.li/Q041vZc50 #SEO

Only 3 weeks into January and it has been busy month for new developments in the world of SEO and AI. Join @cshel and I next Tuesday for the latest edition of SEO Update by @yoast where we'll chat about newsworthy events that have happened in in January. We'll also be sharing some of our predictions for the year ahead! ⏰ Tue 27th Sept, 4pm CEST / 10am EDT 🔗 yoast.wistia.com/live/events/3n…

Later today @cshel and I will host the final SEO Update by @yoast of 2025. We'll discuss events and updates in SEO, WordPress and AI over the past month as well as look at SEO in Review for 2025 as a whole. ⏰ TODAY - 4pm CET / 10am EST 🔗 yoast.wistia.com/live/events/ua…

Once initiated, my recall of Christmas songs is *complete*. This includes the ASL arrangements. (Shout out to my K-5 Xmas pageants)

@nenerlally @MordyOberstein @smx @sengineland @MrDannyGoodwin @rustybrick To be fair, I have also found actual mice floating in the water dish. Death by drowning seems to be the preferred method for dispatching prey.

@MordyOberstein @smx @sengineland @MrDannyGoodwin @rustybrick Was impressed at his unfazed, serious demeanor even during @cshel's funny story about her cat's persistent intent to drown its toy

The cat and I are enjoying the engaging and informative sessions so far from @SMX Next Thanks @sengineland and @MrDannyGoodwin #SMX #SMXnext #SEO #AIsearch

Excited for next Tuesday when I'll be presenting "Optimizing Your Content for AI Search and Agents" at #SMX Next. There's still time to register to virtually attend and not only enjoy all of the sessions, but the live Q&A at each :) searchengineland.com/smx/next/agend…

All 3 of you have spoken. We will blow the leaves back over the property line. The next question is... broad daylight or unreasonably early in the morning? ... or... maybe not use the blower (since it's loud) and use a rake (or shovel) in the dark of night?

We are watching the neighbor's lawn guys blow mountains of leaves over the property line into our yard. Should we:

@CrystalontheWeb I did... came in third... though if there'd been an over 40 division like there was for the men, I would have won that grouping ;) 29'8" with no prior practice... not horrible

@cshel Don't forget to stretch 🤣

So, I am competing in the server throwing competition at Cloudfest Miami, so…. Pray for me.

@ishmilly hey, are you at sessions right now?

This is a great slide from @cshel we built agencies around the seo factory with deliverable assembly lines. But AI can do that now. So how do we transition to search marketers? #StateofSearch

@rustybrick Lololol

Um - Disney doing some advanced SEO? :) probably some SEOs having fun? via George Kamide