What You Need to Know Before You Start Single Page App Development

by Tech Trendz Writer

Web applications of today are replacing the old desktop applications. The reason is it offers the users to update, no device bounded issues & most importantly they are not user-friendly. Most importantly, even users can access browser-based web applications through their mobile phones also. Single-page applications (SPA), which dynamically load different aspects of a web page on a single HTML-based page within the browser as the user is interacting with said elements, have become quite a rage in the recent past. While SPAs admittedly are handy tools, the fact remains one must look past the surface charm before deciding if a SPA is indeed what they need.

To help you do that too, here are some key factors to keep in mind before you start work on a single-page app.

1. Search Engine Optimization: Web crawlers, as in the case of web browsers, request the HTML content for the page but only to gain insight into what the given SPA is all about. While HTML is easily dealt with by these crawlers, it is not necessarily the case with JavaScript execution. What that means is Google and other web crawlers may not necessarily execute JavaScript files that drive the single-page application’s function. Unfortunately, the thing about SPAs default HTML is that it includes information for developers but not so much for these web crawlers. This can result in the SPA’s SEO ranking taking a hit on account of the search engine not understanding what the content is all about.

2. Caching: As the single-page app starts to garner more and more traffic, there are bound to be concerned about page loading times, database queries, etc. In such a scenario, enterprise caching technologies may not be a good fit; instead, tools such as Cloudflare, which offers a plethora of free tools, including page caching, could be a better idea. You see, tools such as Cloudflare serve as a reverse proxy to the SPA, i.e. all queries are channeled via such tools’ infrastructure to the SPA. This ensures the responses of the SPA’s server responses are cached across the tools’ global data centers and all you will be required to do is decide the URLs you want cached and for how long.

3. Social media: A robust SPA will enable users to create dynamic content which is inclusive of ample static content as well. However, sharing content on social media platforms involves a closer analysis of the metadata as compared to the visible content of the page. When creating a single page application from scratch, you will be required to provide these social media platforms with the metadata to create relevant previews of the page. There is another concern in this context: the template HTML file is read exactly as it is instead of the platform using JavaScript to fill in the metadata and, thus, build valid previews. This means that every link from the SPA will generate the same preview every time for every user.

While SPAs are terrific, despite some challenges, the fact remains that one does not have to necessarily choose SPAs every time. What that means is sometimes traditional apps may be a better option. SPAs would be better suited if you are looking to offer an app with a rich UI complemented by several features. SPAs are also a better choice than traditional apps if you want to offer dynamic websites albeit with small data volumes. Now that you have insight about SPAs and more, it will be easier for you to decide if SPA software development is what you need or if you are better off with a traditional app.