How Google handles JavaScript throughout the indexing process

MERJ and Vercel recently conducted research on Google's crawling behavior, analyzing over 100,000 Googlebot fetches to test and validate Google’s SEO capabilities. They placed a custom Edge Middleware on several websites to intercept and analyze requests from search engine bots, enabling them to collect data about how Google's rendering capabilities have evolved over time. The research debunked several myths about Google's handling of JavaScript-heavy websites and demonstrated the importance of understanding SEO for modern web applications. The researchers also made recommendations for optimizing web applications based on their findings.