phantom-express

phantom-express
===============

phantom-express middleware allows for dynamically created content to be visible to Google crawler.
This middleware tests the request for an ``_escaped_fragment_` query parameter. If the parameter is detected the middleware passes pretty URL to the phantomjs process.

Compatible with `requirejs`

$3

1. Install `phantomjs`

On MAC:
`sh
brew install phantomjs
`

On Ubuntu:
`sh
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential chrpath git-core libssl-dev libfontconfig1-dev
git clone git://github.com/ariya/phantomjs.git
cd phantomjs
git checkout 1.9
./build.sh
`
Warning: `apt-get` is having an issue installing recent version of `phantomjs`.
Avoid using `apt-get install phantomjs`

2. Add middleware to the express

`javascript
var phantomExpress = require("phantom-express");

app.use(express.query())
app.use(phantomExpress(options));
`

Default options:
`javascript
options = {
// Currently the middleware caches the response from the
// phantomjs process in the memory. The parameter defines
// TTL in seconds. If 0 is passed the cache will be ignored.
cacheLifetime: 3600

// Dump status to the console or not
verbose: false

// Prepends the string to the pretty generated hash
// ex. if '!' is defined -> #!/home/page
hashPrepend: ''
}
`

$3


The middleware detects if the request URL contains `_escaped_fragment_` (ex. `http://mysite.com/some/path?_escaped_fragment_=hello/world`) query parameter. If so, it parses the request url, generates pretty URL with hash fragment (ex. `http://mysite.com/some/path#hello/world``) and passes it to the phantomjs proccess.

Step by step process:
* The phantomjs proccess renders the page
* Evaluates javascript code
* Waits 5 seconds after last resource has been received (useful for requirejs)
* Grabs the generated HTML
* Sends it to the Google crawler

More information at: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/specification