How to make main content available without JavaScript
Most AI crawlers do not run JavaScript, so the main content must be present in the initial HTML. Use server rendering or static generation so the text is in the first response, check the raw HTML with curl, and keep client-side rendering for interactive widgets only.
By ratemysite.ai editorial team. Updated .
How do you fix it?
- Run curl -s https://yourdomain/page and search the output for your headline and first paragraph.
- If the text is missing, enable server-side rendering, static generation or prerendering in your framework.
- Make sure links to other pages are real <a href> tags in the initial HTML.
- Keep JavaScript for forms, charts and widgets, which need no crawler visibility.
- Re-run the audit and confirm the Content without JS check passes.
Why do AI crawlers need HTML?
Client-side rendering is a way of building pages in which the server sends an empty shell and JavaScript fills in the content in the browser. A person sees a full page, but a crawler that does not run scripts sees almost nothing. Rendering JavaScript is expensive, and most AI crawlers skip it. Picture a single page app whose server response is only a root div and a script tag: a crawler that skips scripts reads 0 words of content from it.
How do I check what a crawler sees?
Fetch the page without a browser, using curl or the View Source command (not the inspector, which shows the page after scripts run). If your headline, body text and links appear, the page is crawler friendly. If not, move to server rendering, static generation at build time, or a prerender service. Prefer static generation for content that changes rarely, because it is also the fastest option. Test again after each major release, since a new component can quietly move text into script.
How much does this check matter?
- This check is worth about 3.6% of the overall score.
- A finished report is reused for 24 hours before you can re-analyze it.
- Each page is fetched with a timeout of 10 seconds, and HTML larger than 2 MB is not audited.
What else do people ask?
- Does Google run JavaScript?
- Yes, Googlebot renders pages, but with a delay. Many AI crawlers fetch only the raw HTML, so server rendered content is safer for both.
- Do I have to abandon React or Vue?
- No. Frameworks such as Next.js, Nuxt and Astro render the same components on the server so the HTML arrives complete.