NextJs in 7 Minutes 🔥
Summary
TLDRNext.js, a powerful React framework by Vercel, is renowned for its SEO-friendly capabilities, utilized by major companies like Netflix and GitHub. Unlike typical React apps, which render on the client side and face SEO challenges, Next.js employs page building strategies like Static Site Generation and Server Side Rendering to deliver fast, static content suitable for search and social media bots. With features like file-based routing and built-in utilities for image optimization, Next.js enhances the React experience, ensuring high performance and user satisfaction. The latest version, featuring a Rust compiler, has further increased its popularity for its speed and efficiency.
Takeaways
- 🌟 NextJS is a powerful React framework developed and maintained by Vercel, known for its SEO-friendly capabilities.
- 🚀 Prominent companies like Netflix, GitHub, Uber, and Starbucks utilize NextJS for their web development needs.
- 🔍 Traditional React applications are client-side rendered, which can hinder SEO due to the reliance on JavaScript for content rendering.
- 🤖 Search and social media bots struggle to index client-side rendered content, affecting the visibility and ranking of websites.
- 🛠 NextJS addresses these issues by implementing server-side rendering and static site generation for improved SEO and faster content delivery.
- 📝 NextJS introduces file-based routing, simplifying URL structure and reducing the need for external routing libraries like React Router DOM.
- 🖼️ Built-in utilities in NextJS enhance image optimization and content structuring, streamlining the development process.
- 🏗️ Static Site Generation (SSG) in NextJS converts dynamic sites into static ones, improving load times and making content accessible to bots.
- 🔄 Server Side Rendering (SSR) allows for dynamic data fetching on the server, providing up-to-date content while maintaining the perception of static HTML to users and bots.
- ⏱️ Using SSR, websites can maintain fast first contextual paint times, improving user experience and aligning with core web vitals.
- 🔄 The 'revalidate' key in getStaticProps enables periodic content updates on static sites, striking a balance between static generation and dynamic content refresh.
- 🔧 The latest version of NextJS includes a Rust compiler, enhancing performance and making it a preferred choice among developers.
Q & A
What is NextJS and who maintains it?
-NextJS is a popular React framework optimized for building SEO-friendly websites. It is built and maintained by Vercel.
Why do companies like Netflix, GitHub, Uber, and Starbucks use NextJS?
-These companies use NextJS because it enhances the capabilities of React by providing server-side rendering and static site generation, improving SEO and user experience.
What is the main issue with typical React applications regarding SEO?
-Typical React applications are client-side rendered, which means search engine bots cannot index the content properly, leading to poor SEO performance.
How does NextJS address the issue of social media bot previews?
-NextJS allows for server-side rendering or static site generation, enabling social media bots to read the content of the page and generate accurate previews.
What is the significance of First Contextual Paint in the context of NextJS?
-First Contextual Paint is a core web vital that measures when the main content of a page is visible to the user. NextJS improves this metric by reducing the time it takes for content to be rendered, enhancing user experience.
Can you explain the concept of file-based routing in NextJS?
-File-based routing in NextJS allows developers to create pages by simply creating files in the 'pages' directory. The URL structure is automatically generated based on the filenames, eliminating the need for an external router.
What is the role of the getStaticProps() method in NextJS?
-The getStaticProps() method is used in static site generation, where it fetches data that will be passed to the page as props. This data is then used to generate static pages that can be cached via a CDN for fast delivery.
How does Server Side Rendering (SSR) differ from Static Site Generation in NextJS?
-SSR generates pages on the server each time they are requested, ensuring that users receive up-to-date content. In contrast, Static Site Generation creates pages ahead of time, which is ideal for content that does not change frequently.
What is the purpose of the revalidate key in getStaticProps()?
-The revalidate key in getStaticProps() allows for periodic regeneration of static pages, providing a balance between the speed of static sites and the freshness of content.
What new feature does the latest version of NextJS offer?
-The latest version of NextJS includes a Rust compiler, which significantly improves the framework's performance.
Why is NextJS considered an enhancement to the powers of React?
-NextJS enhances React by providing solutions for SEO, content previews, and improved performance through server-side rendering, static site generation, and built-in features like file-based routing and image optimization.
Outlines
🌐 NextJS: The React Framework for SEO and Performance
NextJS is a highly praised React framework developed by Vercel. It is favored by major companies like Netflix, GitHub, Uber, and Starbucks for creating SEO-friendly websites. Traditional React applications render on the client side, which can lead to SEO challenges as search engine bots struggle to index JavaScript-driven content. This can also affect social media previews, as bots cannot execute JavaScript to generate previews. NextJS addresses these issues by allowing content to be pre-rendered, either server-side or through CDN caching, enhancing SEO and user experience. It introduces file-based routing, simplifying URL structure management, and offers built-in utilities for image optimization and content structuring. NextJS also supports static site generation and server-side rendering, catering to both static and dynamic content needs. Static site generation converts dynamic content into a static site for fast delivery and easy indexing, while server-side rendering ensures dynamic content is served with optimal performance.
🚀 Enhancing User Experience with NextJS's Page Building Strategies
NextJS further improves user experience and content accessibility through its page building strategies. It allows for both static site generation and server-side rendering, ensuring that content is readily available and up-to-date. Static site generation is ideal for content that doesn't change frequently, while server-side rendering is better suited for dynamic content. NextJS also introduces a hybrid approach where content can be revalidated periodically using the `revalidate` key in `getStaticProps`. This strategy ensures that static sites can be refreshed with new content at specified intervals. The new version of NextJS, which is free and open-source, includes a Rust compiler for enhanced performance. This makes NextJS an even more attractive choice for developers looking to leverage the power of React with improved SEO and performance.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡NextJS
💡SEO
💡Client-side Rendering
💡First Contextual Paint
💡Static Site Generation
💡getStaticProps()
💡Server Side Rendering
💡getServerSideProps()
💡CDN
💡revalidate
💡Rust Compiler
Highlights
NextJS is a React framework built and maintained by Vercel.
It is used for making SEO friendly websites.
Popular companies like Netflix, Github, Uber, and Starbucks use NextJS.
React applications are typically rendered on the client side.
Client-side rendering is not SEO friendly.
Social media bots cannot generate previews for client-side rendered content.
NextJS solves SEO issues by pre-rendering content.
NextJS uses file-based routing for URL structure.
Static Site Generation converts dynamic sites into static sites for faster delivery.
getStaticProps() is used for pre-rendering pages in Static Site Generation.
CDNs optimize content delivery for faster page speeds.
Server Side Rendering is used for sites with frequently changing data.
getServerSideProps() fetches data on the server for each request.
Revalidate key in getStaticProps() allows for periodic content updates.
NextJS is free, open source, and has a new version with a Rust compiler for increased speed.
NextJS enhances the capabilities of React by addressing SEO and performance issues.
Transcripts
NextJS is a very amazing react framework
Which is build and maintained by a company named Vercel
It is mainly used for
Making SEO friendly websites
And it is used by companies like Netflix, Github, Uber and Starbucks
When React is already so popular
Then why do all these companies use NextJS
Let's find out
A typical React application is rendered on client site
Which means HTML, CSS and JavaScript is downloaded by the browser
After that, JavaScript takes over and renders the whole page
Because of which browser gets one bundle
After that, all the other things like
Painting the content
Downloading an asset
And along with that, posting a blog or populating images
All these tasks are done by JavaScript
Although this approach sounds really good
But this approach has some downsides
One biggest downside is
This is not a SEO friendly approach
Because Bots like Google, cannot index these type of websites
Along with that if we talk about social meadia bots like Facebook, Google, Twitter
You guys must have seen sometimes
When you share the link of any social media post on WhatApp or other application
Then a preview image is generated
And a preview text is also generated which means,
Ahead of time, without visitng the page
These social media bots read the content of your page
Now all the content in React is populated through JavaScript
So JavaScript cannot be executed
Because of which social meadia bots cannot generate these type of previews
So by using React application in this way, the search rankings drop greatly
The reason for this is, it takes a lot of time for the First Contextual Paint to appear
And according to core web vitals, this is not a good thing
It does not give a good user experience
NextJS solves this big problem
By introducing page building strategies
NextJS works on a simple principle
That whatever data your browser will receive
It will already have content
Which means the main content will not be fetched by JavaScript
For a blog, the main content is the preview image and the post content
So this content will either come already generated from the server
Or else it is already build and converted to cache through a CDN
Not just this, NextJS has a lot of built-in features
Like file-based routing
In file-based routing you can simply make files in your source code
And after making these files, your URL structures
Will come according to these files
For example, if I make a component named index.js in my pages folder
And a component named blog.js
And a component named contact.js
So whenever I visit slash (/) blog slash contact
Or visit the homepage of the website
Then I can see all these React components by default
I don't have to use any external router
Typically this task in React is done by React router package named DOM
Which is more or less development effort
Along with this, for image optimization and to structure all the other contents
There are many built-in utilities in NextJS
Now lets talk about the most important feature of NextJS
Which is page building strategies
In Page Building Strategies, the first strategy is
Static Site Generation
In this, NextJS converts your whole site into a static site, before hand
For example, you have written a blog which consists of one thousand posts
Then your dynamic blog of one thousand posts will be coverted into a static website
So that its delivery is fast
And socila media bots and search engine bots are able to read your site properly
For doing this, all pages can implement a method named getStaticProps()
Which will return some props, which will be passed to that page again
By doing this, whenever you will export the next time and try to build your whole website
Then your whole NextJS website, which some way or the other uses React components only
It will be coverted into a static site
Which you can convert into cache through a CDN
Which means your content delivery will be very fast
Difference between a CDN and VPS is that
CDN is optimized for content delivery
Which means, your users will get very fast page speeds
But this strategy is only good for those sites in which data is not changed so often
If your data changes very quickly
Then you can use another page building strategy whose name is Server Side Rendering
In Server Side Rendering, every page can implement a method named getserverside props
And after implementing this, the resulting props
For example, in your getServerSideProp() you can request a fetch
And you can get that data from fetchAPI
Or you can pass the same component as props
By doing this, whenever an user will visit your page
They will get the static page after all their work is done on the server
So the user will think your site is giving all the static HTML
But in reality, your site is doing some work on the server
To fetch your content from the database
So the users and the social media bots and the search engine bots
Will get the thing which they need
Which makes them happy and which makes your ranking good
Along with that, your user will also get satisfaction
Because your core web vitals will be amazing
Your first contextual paint time will be short
And, because your content is changing very fast
You can see all those changes implementing on the fly
If we talk about Static Site generation
Until you build your site again, you won't be able to see the updated content
But by using this strategy, you will always see the updated content
If you want your content to keep refreshing also
And along with that you also want to build a static site
Then you can use a page building strategy in between these two
In which you can pass a key named revalidate in getstaticprops
By doing this, whenever your server will receive a request
Then your website will rebuild again after a certain period of time
I hope I have explained it to guys what NextJS is
And how does it makes the powers of React more better
You guys must try NextJS, its new version is out now
And its completely free and open source and an amazing framework
There is a Rust compiler in its new version
Which makes it more fast
And in today's date people prefer using it even more
I hope you must have learned something new from this video
Thank you so much guys for watching this video
And I will see you next time
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