Google claims that their decision to require JavaScript was made to protect users from “from bots and evolving forms of abuse and spam.” While most of us aren’t using Google Search in the first place, I am intrigued by this quote in the article:
One of Google’s motivations here may be inhibiting third-party tools that give insights into Google Search trends and traffic. According to a post on Search Engine Roundtable on Friday, a number of “rank-checking” tools — tools that indicate how websites are performing in search engines — began experiencing issues with Google Search around the time Google’s JavaScript requirement came into force.
Has anyone else noticed usability issues when disabling JavaScript? Hopefully, this isn’t a pattern for other websites to follow.