Silverlight SEO Challenges

Common challenges with Silverlight and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).


  • Crawlers cannot examine \ index XAP files and only see the object tag. Microsoft may be researching how to do this for Bing. This is just my assumption, I have not seen anywhere that they have stated they would do this.

  • Even if the crawler can open the XAP file, it would not see the dynamic content displayed to the client.

  • Not everyone has Silverlight installed and there are a few browsers do not support the Silverlight plug-in

  • Meta tags and title do not change in the html output as you navigate through the Silverlight application

  • Links to specific pages inside the Silverlight application usually do not exist outside of the application

  • Silverlight does not produce HTML content natively