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Lesson 4 of 6

Why JavaScript Breaks Citations

Vercel and MERJ found AI crawlers execute essentially no JavaScript. This lesson fixes client-rendering with SSR or SSG.

Learning objectives

  • ▸Explain why client-rendered content is invisible.
  • ▸Choose SSR, SSG, or prerendering.
  • ▸Keep your framework while rendering on the server.

The lesson

Read the full lesson →Why JavaScript Breaks Your AI Citation EligibilityVercel and MERJ analyzed 500M+ GPTBot requests and found zero JavaScript execution — so content rendered client-side is invisible to AI crawlers. If your answer only appears after JS runs, you can't be cited. Here are the SSR, SSG, and prerender fixes, with code.4 min read

Key takeaways

  • ▸500M+ GPTBot requests showed zero JavaScript execution (Vercel/MERJ).
  • ▸Put citable content in the initial HTML.
  • ▸React and Vue are fine — render on the server.

Knowledge check

Knowledge check

0 / 2

  1. 1. Do AI crawlers run JavaScript?

  2. 2. What is the fix for client-rendered content?