Can t we SEO Mern Stack Applications and reactjs Applications

Question

I created a MERN Stack Application which uses reactjs as the frontend, Nodejs with express as the Backend, and MongoDB as the Database. I want to do SEO for this application but in many articles and resources, I have seen them mentioning that we can't SEO Reactjs applications and instead we need to implement SSR(Server side rendering).

1. My first question is Can we upgrade the existing MERN application to NextJs?
2. any other methods to SEO this MERN Application?
3. Do I need to stop using React as the frontend in my future projects? Instead, do I need to use Nextjs definitely in my future projects?

Answer 1

You cannot do SEO of a react application. You have to use SSR for it. And yes you can update your  existing MERN to Nextjs application but its a lengthy manual process 

• Routing (NextJs has a different way of routing)
• Way of Importing Styles
• Run Scripts in package.json
• If you have used browser things like window objects, localStorage then you have to handle those in SSR

And there may be other issues you might face while running the app.
To answer your second question SSR is the only way without SSR you can't SEO the Mern application. 
And for the third question:  

• Go with NextJs if SEO is a must and you want SSR (Ex: E-Commerce Site, Personal Site)
• Go with React if no SEO (Ex: Admin Panel, Specific User-based Web App).

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