In my opinion, the single greatest SEO issue with AJAX is the tendency (although not necessity) of AJAX applications to not judiciously create unique, bookmarkable (and therefore indexable) URLs for SEO.

It is critical for SEO to get as many internal pages indexed is critical. Like the IBM article mentions, the fact that Google put the “Link to this page” feature on the Maps page shows that they understand the SEO need for unique URLs pulled from within the application.

Depending in what you’re doing with AJAX, you’ll derive a ton of SEO benefit from a similar philosophy.
Static HTML Files
One solution is to only use AJAX as  a layer of logic over the top of the application to add usability and interactivity. Having degradable hyperlinks is essential to accessibility and search engine crawlability and SEO.  If this is true, you can to direct the links to the static pages (using href=”linktostaticpage” mce_href=”linktostaticpage” ) and then over-ride that with an external JS function via AJAX code.

Another suggestion is to use traditional links with “onclick” AJAX behaviours returning false. When a javascript enabled browser clicks an AJAX link, the “return false” tells the browser not to follow the link.  With Javascript off (ie google), it will ignore the “return false” and follow the link anyway – the link is of course to the static URL mentioned in rule

1.A partial solution to this is the use of the noscript tag. The careful use of this tag will provide the search engine some static content to review, in addition to providing information for users that are not able to access the dynamic content. Be careful to make this content the best that you can for SEO. Make every effort to provide the same content in the tag as you would find in the AJAX portion of the page. If the content contained in the tag appears too divergent, competitors may report your site as “spam”. If a manual inspection by a search engine rep finds the content too dissimilar, you may find your pages ignored which is not good for SEO. 

Mod Rewrite Solution
So basically, this AJAX SEO solution is to develop some type of mod-rewrite or similar function that will map of series of different url’s to a AJAX page and that page may have a different page title, description, and even body text based on the url called.  Basically, the URL becomes a database, or text file, trigger that is interpreted and results in the browser doing something distinctive. 

A secondary point is that once you’ve created the capability to create unique internal URLs, you need to post them somewhere so they can be crawled.  I would recommend two possibilities…the first is a Site Map that would provide a user with some hierarchical overview but ultimately be a SEO Roadmap to the site to feed unique internal URLs to the search engine spiders.
In addition, this site map provides linkable tags for marketing campaigns, link building campaigns, and other type of exercise that would benefit from a static link to arrive at specific content that is not the default loading of the AJAX Page.  Bookmarks are problematic and the site should offer a ‘link to this page’ or ‘permalink’ option on the page which gives people the correct URL. 
Example of MOD REWRITE for AJAX SEO
Server side script
.htaccess mod_rewrite
If you’re not based on the Apache server when it comes to hosting then mod_rewrite may not be an option but there are always solutions. Check out your hosting platforms options with regards to URL rewriting.
The following links offer an example of rewriting an URL to form a fixed address that a search engine can index safely and rank.
http://www.samplesite.com/ajax seo/company/1/
http://www.samplesite.com/ajax seo/company/2/
http://www.samplesite.com/ajax seo/company/3/
The above URL’s are a rewritten version of:
http://www.samplesite.com/ajax seo/index.php?company=1
http://www.samplesite.com/ajax seo/index.php?company=2
http://www.samplesite.com/ajax seo/index.php?company=3
The mod_rewrite instructions that allow for this are as follows:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ajax_seo/(.*)/(.*)/$
/ajax_seo/index.php?$1=$2
Although the real URL is a dynamically generated single page, the mod_rewrite instruction gives the appearance (to a search engine) that there is a directory with different and more importantly unique content at the destination.
Site Feeds

Another AJAX SEO solution is using Google Base, ROR files, Yahoo Paid Inclusion, and other type of Search Engine Feed to promote the static urls into the search engine index.  This eliminates some of the spider risk and provides good navigational queries for searches who do not rely on bookmarks. So basically, this solution is or similar function that will map of series of different url’s to a AJAX page and that page may have a different page title, description, and even body text based on the url called.  Basically, the URL becomes a database, or text file, trigger that is interpreted and results in the browser doing something distinctive. A secondary point is that once you’ve created the to create unique internal URLs, you need to post them somewhere so they can be crawled.  I would recommend two possibilities…the first is a that would provide a user with some hierarchical overview but ultimately be a SEO Roadmap to the site to feed unique internal URLs to the search engine spiders.In addition, this site map provides linkable tags for marketing campaigns, link building campaigns, and other type of exercise that would benefit from a static link to arrive at specific content that is not the default loading of the AJAX Page.  Bookmarks are problematic and the site should offer a ‘link to this page’ or ‘permalink’ option on the page which gives people the correct URL.Server side script.htaccess mod_rewriteIf you’re not based on the Apache server when it comes to hosting then mod_rewrite may not be an option but there are always solutions. Check out your hosting platforms options with regards to URL rewriting.The following links offer an example of rewriting an URL to form a fixed address that a search engine can index safely and rank.http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/1/http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/2/http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/3/The above URL’s are a rewritten version of:http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=1http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=2http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=3The mod_rewrite instructions that allow for this are as follows:Options +FollowSymLinksRewriteEngine onRewriteRule ajax_seo/(.*)/(.*)/$/ajax_seo/index.php?$1=$2Although the real URL is a dynamically generated single page, the mod_rewrite instruction gives the appearance (to a search engine) that there is a directory with different and more importantly unique content at the destination.Another solution is using Google Base, ROR files, Yahoo Paid Inclusion, and other type of Search Engine Feed to promote the static urls into the search engine index.  This eliminates some of the spider risk and provides good navigational queries for searches who do not rely on bookmarks. 

So basically, this solution is or similar function that will map of series of different url’s to a AJAX page and that page may have a different page title, description, and even body text based on the url called.  Basically, the URL becomes a database, or text file, trigger that is interpreted and results in the browser doing something distinctive. A secondary point is that once you’ve created the to create unique internal URLs, you need to post them somewhere so they can be crawled.  I would recommend two possibilities…the first is a that would provide a user with some hierarchical overview but ultimately be a AJAX SEO Roadmap to the site to feed unique internal URLs to the search engine spiders.In addition, this site map provides linkable tags for marketing campaigns, link building campaigns, and other type of exercise that would benefit from a static link to arrive at specific content that is not the default loading of the AJAX Page.  Bookmarks are problematic and the site should offer a ‘link to this page’ or ‘permalink’ option on the page which gives people the correct URL.Server side script.htaccess mod_rewriteIf you’re not based on the Apache server when it comes to hosting then mod_rewrite may not be an option but there are always solutions. Check out your hosting platforms options with regards to URL rewriting.The following links offer an example of rewriting an URL to form a fixed address that a search engine can index safely and rank.http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/1/http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/2/http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/3/The above URL’s are a rewritten version of:http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=1http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=2http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=3The mod_rewrite instructions that allow for this are as follows:Options +FollowSymLinksRewriteEngine onRewriteRule ajax_seo/(.*)/(.*)/$/ajax_seo/index.php?$1=$2Although the real URL is a dynamically generated single page, the mod_rewrite instruction gives the appearance (to a search engine) that there is a directory with different and more importantly unique content at the destination.

Another AJAX SEO solution is using Google Base, ROR files, Yahoo Paid Inclusion, and other type of Search Engine Feed to promote the static urls into the search engine index.  This eliminates some of the spider risk and provides good navigational queries for searches who do not rely on bookmarks. So basically, this solution is or similar function that will map of series of different url’s to a AJAX page and that page may have a different page title, description, and even body text based on the url called.  Basically, the URL becomes a database, or text file, trigger that is interpreted and results in the browser doing something distinctive. A secondary SEO point is that once you’ve created the to create unique internal URLs, you need to post them somewhere so they can be crawled.  I would recommend two possibilities…the first is a that would provide a user with some hierarchical overview but ultimately be a SEO Roadmap to the site to feed unique internal URLs to the search engine spiders.In addition, this site map provides linkable tags for marketing campaigns, link building campaigns, and other type of exercise that would benefit from a static link to arrive at specific content that is not the default loading of the AJAX Page.  Bookmarks are problematic and the site should offer a ‘link to this page’ or ‘permalink’ option on the page which gives people the correct URL.Server side script.htaccess mod_rewriteIf you’re not based on the Apache server when it comes to hosting then mod_rewrite may not be an option but there are always solutions. Check out your hosting platforms options with regards to URL rewriting.The following links offer an example of rewriting an URL to form a fixed address that a search engine can index safely and rank.http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/1/http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/2/http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/company/3/The above URL’s are a rewritten version of:http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=1http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=2http://www.samplesite.com/ajax_seo/index.php?company=3The mod_rewrite instructions that allow for this are as follows:Options +FollowSymLinksRewriteEngine onRewriteRule ajax_seo/(.*)/(.*)/$/ajax_seo/index.php?$1=$2Although the real URL is a dynamically generated single page, the mod_rewrite instruction gives the appearance (to a search engine) that there is a directory with different and more importantly unique content at the destination.Another solution is using Google Base, ROR files, Yahoo Paid Inclusion, and other type of Search Engine Feed to promote the static urls into the search engine index.  This eliminates some of the SEO spider risk and provides good navigational queries for searches who do not rely on bookmarks. 

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