React Router v7.6.3 is Now SEO Friendly: Rendering Strategies Explained

🚀 React Router v7.6.3 is Now SEO Friendly: Rendering Strategies Explained

React has traditionally been seen as a client-side JavaScript framework, which made SEO optimization a bit tricky—especially when it came to search engine crawlers that struggled with JavaScript-rendered content. Learn more about our web development services or check out the React Router docs.

But that narrative is changing fast.

With the introduction of rendering strategies in React Router v7.6.3, SEO in React apps just got a major upgrade. Whether you’re building a Single Page App (SPA), need server-side rendering, or want static pre-rendered routes for lightning-fast page loads, React Router now has you covered.

🧠 Introduction: What’s New in React Router v7.6.3?

React Router v7.6.3 introduces built-in rendering strategies that give you full control over how your routes are rendered—making it easier than ever to build fast, SEO-friendly applications.

• Client-Side Rendering (CSR)
• Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
• Static Pre-rendering (SPR)

Each has its own use case depending on your app's SEO, performance, and hosting requirements.

1️⃣ Client-Side Rendering (CSR)

Client-side rendering is React’s default and most common rendering method. It’s great for SPAs where fast, interactive UI is the main goal, but it’s not inherently SEO-friendly unless you're using prerendering or SSR for critical pages.

import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  ssr: false,
} satisfies Config;

This ensures that all routes are rendered on the client side, ideal for apps that don’t rely heavily on search engine traffic.

2️⃣ Server-Side Rendering (SSR)

Server-side rendering is the SEO-friendly solution. It sends fully rendered HTML pages from the server to the browser, making it easy for search engines to crawl and index content.

import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  ssr: true,
} satisfies Config;

✅ Bonus: Even with SSR enabled globally, individual routes can still use static pre-rendering or client-side data fetching via clientLoader.

This hybrid approach gives developers full flexibility.

3️⃣ Static Pre-rendering (SPR)

Static pre-rendering is the best of both worlds: you get SEO benefits without needing a server, perfect for deploying on platforms like Netlify or GitHub Pages.

import type { Config } from "@react-router/dev/config";

export default {
  // return a list of URLs to prerender at build time
  async prerender() {
    return ["/", "/about", "/contact"];
  },
} satisfies Config;

At build time, React Router will generate static HTML and client navigation data for each route listed. This is fantastic for performance, crawlability, and reliability.

⚙️ Data Loading: Declarative & Flexible

• Use `loader` functions for server or pre-rendered data fetching.
• Use `clientLoader` for fetching data in the browser (CSR only).

This separation of concerns means you can optimize each route according to its needs—SEO-heavy pages with SSR or SPR, and dashboard-style pages with CSR and clientLoader.

🧱 Framework Agnostic, SEO Friendly

Whether you're using Vite, Remix, or a custom setup, React Router v7.6.3 plays nicely with your build system. And since React Router now supports pre-rendering and SSR out of the box, you don't need to rely on third-party tools to make your app SEO-ready.

🌐 Conclusion: React Apps Can Be SEO Friendly Now

• Full support for client-side rendering,
• Opt-in server-side rendering, and
• Flexible static pre-rendering,

…it empowers developers to build modern, fast, SEO-optimized apps—with ease.

No more hacks. No more server workarounds. Just clean, declarative code.

🔖 TL;DR

🔗 Ready to try it?

npm install react-router

Need help setting this up in your app? Let me know and I’ll walk you through a full working example.