The Rendering Gap
Most AI crawlers cannot execute JavaScript. When GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot crawls your page, they receive the initial HTML response — before any client-side JavaScript runs. If your main content loads via JavaScript, AI crawlers see an empty page or a loading spinner.
For single-page applications (SPAs) built with React, Angular, or Vue without server-side rendering, the rendering gap can mean 100% of content is invisible to AI.
#1 technical reason for zero AI citations
If AI can’t see your content, nothing else matters — author attribution, schema markup, and content quality are irrelevant if the content itself is invisible.
How to Check If Your Content Is Visible
Method 1: View Source
Right-click your page and select “View Page Source” (not Inspect Element). Search for key phrases from your content. If it appears in the HTML, AI can see it.
Method 2: Disable JavaScript
In your browser’s developer tools, disable JavaScript and reload the page. What you see is what AI crawlers see.
Common rendering gap situations
How to Fix the Rendering Gap
Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
RecommendedYour server renders the full HTML before sending it to the browser. In Next.js, this is the default for Server Components. In Nuxt.js, use useFetch or useAsyncData.
Static Site Generation (SSG)
Pages are pre-rendered at build time. Produces static HTML files that AI crawlers can read immediately. Best for content that doesn’t change frequently.
Hybrid Approach
Use SSR or SSG for content-heavy pages (product pages, blog posts, documentation) and client-side rendering only for interactive features (dashboards, forms).
Key principle: The content you want AI to cite must be in the initial HTML response. Interactive features can remain client-side, but substantive text content must be server-rendered.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) cannot execute JavaScript. They receive only the initial HTML response. Google's AI systems may have limited JavaScript rendering capability through Googlebot, but relying on this is risky. The safest approach is server-side rendering for all content you want AI to cite.
Right-click your page and select 'View Page Source' (not Inspect Element). Search for key phrases from your content. If the text appears in the source HTML, AI can see it. If it doesn't — meaning the content only loads after JavaScript executes — you have a rendering gap that blocks AI visibility.
Audit Your AI Search Visibility
See exactly how AI systems view your content and what to fix. Join the waitlist to get early access.
Audit Your AI Search Visibility
See exactly how AI systems view your content and what to fix. Join the waitlist to get early access.