Server-side rendering (SSR) is the practice of rendering a page's HTML on the server before sending it to the browser. The user (and crawler) receives a fully-formed HTML document on the first response. SSR is critical for AEO because AI crawlers often do not execute JavaScript, so client-side-rendered sites appear empty to them.
GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and most AI training crawlers do not execute JavaScript. A React or Vue app that renders client-side is invisible to them. SSR (or static site generation) sends fully-rendered HTML on the first request, making the content visible to crawlers regardless of JS execution.
Use frameworks with first-class SSR support: Next.js (React), Nuxt (Vue), SvelteKit. For existing apps, prerendering services (Prerender.io, Rendertron) can serve pre-rendered HTML to crawlers while serving the JS app to users.
View the source of your page (Ctrl+U). Content visible in the source is SSR-delivered. Content only visible in DevTools' Elements panel is client-rendered. The Readiness Check tests for SSR by comparing rendered HTML to source HTML.
Run the free 50-signal AI Agent Readiness Check or book a free scoping call.
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