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Why does AI see my site as empty when there is text on it?

A site that assembles its content in the browser with JavaScript delivers a nearly empty document on first fetch; the text appears only after the scripts have run. Search engines usually do run those scripts, but part of the AI crawlers do not, or not always — and they then get a page with no content, no error message, and nobody noticing.

By Njusja Orban, founder of ceeme4 min read

Measure your own company → Rather talk it through first

In short

The symptom
An assistant knows your address but not your content. It mentions your existence and can offer no specifics.
The test
Switch JavaScript off and reload. If an empty page remains, that is what part of the crawlers see.
The repair
Send the key text along in the server's first response. That is usually possible without rebuilding your site.

What goes wrong technically on such a site?

The server sends a document with an empty container and a reference to a script file. A browser fetches that script, runs it, and only then does your text appear. For a visitor that takes a fraction of a second and goes unnoticed; for a program that only fetches the first response, the page is empty.

That was an SEO topic for years and it is now wider: search engines learned to wait, the newer fetchers have not all done so. A site that ranks fine in classic results can therefore count as empty in an AI answer.

How do I test in two minutes whether this affects me?

Turn JavaScript off in your browser settings and reload your page. What remains is roughly what a fetcher without execution sees. If that is a blank screen or a loading animation, you have your answer.

Do the test on three pages and not just your homepage: with many builders the first page is sent along and the rest are not. That is exactly the pattern where an assistant knows you exist and can say nothing further about you.

Do I now have to have my whole site rebuilt?

Usually not. The common solution is for the server to prepare the page once and send the text in the first response; the site then keeps working as it did. With most modern builders that is a setting or a small piece of work, not a rebuild.

If it cannot, there is a middle road that is less elegant and does work: make sure the core facts — who you are, what you do, where you are, what it costs — are in the document even without scripts, if only as plain text at the bottom. Complete is better, and something is considerably better than nothing.

What should I watch for on my next site?

Ask for one thing in the brief and write it down: the content must be in the server's first response. That is one sentence in a specification, it costs nothing extra up front, and it is the most expensive change to make afterwards.

Frequently asked questions

My site is in Google fine. So it is all right?

Not necessarily. The major search engines run scripts before judging a page; several fetchers feeding AI answers do not, or only sometimes. So you can be neatly indexed and at the same time have nothing to offer in an AI answer.

Does this apply to webshops too?

Yes, and the bill is bigger there, because the data that disappears is exactly the data choices are made on: price, availability, delivery time. A product page whose price appears only after a script is, for part of the fetchers, a page without a price — and then you go unnamed on a question about price.

Read on

AI inspectorWhat a fetcher is left with from your page AI readinessWhere this fits among the four components Bad SEO and GEOWhich mistakes carry into both Self-testCheck your site without an account
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