You may have heard of HULU or even used its services.
HULU is a similar streaming service to say Netflix or ABC iView.
Recently HULU plummeted in Google. From following what seems like Google advice “we can understand Javascript”. HULU has updated their site with more Javascript which has hurt their visibility greatly.
Javascript handles cool animations like fades, movement etc…
Javascript in HULU’s case was probably animations for TV show searching and animations when navigating their website.
Bartosz Goralewicz from LRT pointed out this dramatic visibility drop and documented it in an interesting case study.
With more than 50% of the visibility already lost, the situation for Hulu.com is getting worse every day at a massive, destructive pace.
Whats the take home?
While many of us small business owners wont have the time or money to build detailed Javascript websites like HULU. Its still probably a good idea to keep things simple. Basic animations, search system etc…
The specific penalty related to HULU is more to do with navigation and how Google reads their site with HULU’s Javascript rather than plane HTML.
It gets a bit technical but that said, complicated animations slow down your site and your customers which is something Google is looking at.
Questions and Answers
Q: When is Javascript too much:
A: Analytics and other customer data is the best answer for this.
Are people leaving your site too quickly, are they trying to click buttons that animate too much, are they waiting for pages to load etc…
These are the questions you should be asking and checking.
Form over function is the key here. Can your customers get what they want quickly.
Over designing and jazzing things up too much can lead to fewer sales.
Just for Fun
