Jan 21, 2025 07:00:00

Google to prompt users to 'enable JavaScript' when using Google Search to protect against bots and spam

While the content displayed by Google search includes useful and life-enhancing content, there are also malicious

bots and spam content that obtains users' personal information. To protect users from these bot and spam activities, it has been reported that Google is now requiring users to turn on JavaScript when using its search engine.

Google begins requiring JavaScript for Google Search | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/17/google-begins-requiring-javascript-for-google-search/

Confirmed: Google Is Requiring JavaScript To Block SEO Tools

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/confirmed-google-is-requiring-javascript-to-block-seo-tools/537705/

According to one user who uses the browser extension ' uBlock Origin ,' which blocks unnecessary JavaScript, when browsing using uBlock Origin, a page that says 'Please enable JavaScript to continue searching' has appeared about once in 20 times over the past few months.

Below is the page that asks you to enable JavaScript. Google says, 'JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Please enable JavaScript to continue searching,' and explains how to set it up in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

Please enable JavaScript to use search
https://www.google.com/httpservice/retry/enablejs

A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch, 'This change is intended to 'better protect' Google Search from malicious activity, such as bots and spam, and to improve users' overall Google search experience.' They also said that if JavaScript is turned off, many Google search features may not function properly and the quality of search results may be reduced.

TechCrunch said, 'The implementation of the JavaScript requirement in Google Search may block third-party tools that analyze Google search trends and traffic.' According to the overseas media Search Engine Roundtable, since around January 2025, when JavaScript began to be mandatory, many of the 'rank check tools,' which show the performance of websites in search engines, have been experiencing problems. Tom Rutke, who monitors the '

AI Overviews' feature of Google Search, said, 'The detection rate of AI overviews using Ziptie has decreased. It seems that Google is blocking AI overview monitoring tools in a smart way that goes far beyond traditional CAPTCHAs. We are looking for ways to improve the detection rate of AI overviews.'

We've observed a decrease (approximately 2 percentage points) in AIO detection rates through Ziptie's tracking system. It seems Google is blocking AIO checkers in a smart way, far beyond traditional captchas. We are looking for ways to improve the AIO detection rate.

— Tomek Rudzki (@TomekRudzki) January 16, 2025

'Scraping Google with JavaScript turned on requires more computing power, and often requires a headless browser to render the page, which adds extra steps, increases hosting costs, and can be slow,' said Vahan Petrosyan, technology director at Search Engine Journal. He spoke about the possibility that the increased resources required for crawling and the associated rate increases could be passed on to users.

While Google cites security as a reason for making JavaScript mandatory, open source security company WhiteSource has found numerous vulnerabilities in the programming languages C, Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, and C++, and has pointed out that 'JavaScript is the only programming language where the number of vulnerabilities has consistently increased over the past decade.'