A few months back Microsoft released their latest personal computing operating system – Windows 10 – making it freely available to those with genuine copies of Windows 7 or 8.1. With this update came the replacement of Internet Explorer with Microsoft Edge. One of the main benefits of Edge is that it is easier for SEO professionals to focus their time and energy on creating content as opposed to browser optimisation for this content.
Why did this major change happen?
This change came about from an attempt to improve the rendering engine, Trident, in Internet Explorer which is almost 20 years old. This attempt to replace the core of a legacy web browser soon became a project to create a new and modern web browser.
What are the notable changes for SEO and web professionals?
Edge supports new standards which will allow you to create great online experiences across all browsers and more importantly it means that you won’t have to do anything special to make your websites work properly in Edge. Closer adherence to web standards means a lot of cruft in mark-up is no longer needed so you’ll spend less time writing custom mark-up.
Many mobile browsers are based on an open source rendering engine called WebKit and so most mobile websites are made to work with WebKit’s features. If developers fail to account for this then the desktop site will open because the site will think that the mobile IE browser is actually a desktop site. Now Edge is acting as a non-Microsoft browser in an attempt to render web pages properly with the right content. Again this removes the worry of rendering content across browsers for an SEO professional.
Although there won’t be a fixed schedule for updating browser features, they will offer more frequent updates on Edge. This will mean that there will be faster bug fixes much like with other browsers.
What are the notable changes for users?
Apart from these more technical changes Microsoft Edge comes with three main features for users. The first allows you to write, type and doodle on web pages with the Web Note feature which can then be shared with others. The second offers users a ‘Reading View’ which moves distracting content out of the way so users can focus on reading only what they want to. The third feature is a hub allowing one-click access to downloads, favourites, reading lists and more.
Overall it seems like Microsoft Edge will make it easier for SEO and web professionals to create high-quality sites and provide a better experience for users. Happy days!
