Improving Visibility of Open Transit Data with Next.js Migration
MobilityData, a non-profit maintaining an open transit data repository, migrated from a React SPA to Next.js. This improved performance, search visibility, and social media previews, making their public data more accessible.
Why it matters
Improving the discoverability and accessibility of open transit data is crucial for enabling developers and agencies to build better transportation tools and services.
Key Points
- 1Migrated from a React SPA to Next.js to improve discoverability of public transit data
- 2Saw over 1 second faster load times on desktop and over 3-5 seconds faster on mobile
- 3Google search results increased from 15 to ~100 pages indexed after the migration
- 4Improved social media previews when sharing links to the platform
Details
MobilityData maintains the MobilityDatabase, an open catalog of over 6,000 transit data feeds used by developers and agencies worldwide. Their previous React SPA application had a problem - Google was unable to properly index and parse the JavaScript-rendered content, leading to many pages being classified as 'low quality' and excluded from search results. This was counterproductive to their mission of making transit data discoverable. By migrating to Next.js, they were able to improve Core Web Vitals performance, with the landing page loading over 1 second faster on desktop and 5 seconds faster on mobile. The number of pages indexed by Google also jumped from 15 to around 100 within a week of the migration. Additionally, the migration improved social media previews when sharing links to the platform. Overall, the Next.js migration made MobilityData's public transit data much more visible and accessible to users.
No comments yet
Be the first to comment