Short answer: If your website's content only appears after JavaScript runs in the browser, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity probably cannot read it. SEO consultant Glenn Gabe confirmed this again on October 19, 434 days after his first test. Spend five minutes checking your site with JavaScript turned off, and if the content disappears, start by prerendering your key pages.
On October 19, Glenn Gabe updated his GSQI post, first published on August 11, 2025, with a one-line conclusion: AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude "still cannot render JS-based content." That is 434 days after the original test, and Search Engine Roundtable included it in its October 20 daily recap. For companies whose websites are single-page apps built with React or Vue, it means an AI assistant asked "which company in Taichung does X" may not see a word of what they wrote.
Why does this matter more now? AI crawlers already operate at scale. Vercel measured its network and found that in one month OpenAI's GPTBot made 569 million fetches and Claude 370 million, together about 20% of Googlebot's 4.5 billion, and none of the major AI crawlers execute JavaScript. Over the past 18 months, front-end frameworks made "let the browser draw the whole page" common. In the same period, people started asking AI to recommend vendors. Where those trends meet, client-rendered sites end up visible to Google but invisible to AI assistants.
There are three camps of fixes. Prerendering services such as Prerender.io generate HTML for crawlers, with entry plans at $59 a month since September 15. Alli AI bundles rendering with title and schema changes. The third camp is the framework itself: Next.js, Nuxt or Laravel output HTML from the server and solve the problem at the source. The category is moving from "SEO plug-in" to "website architecture decision."
For Taiwanese SMBs the link is direct: many new websites, campaign pages and app-style sites are client-rendered. Below are the test details, what three types of readers can do today, a tool comparison and fixes that need no subscription.
The details: three AI tools fail, Google and Bing succeed
The problem is how the site is rendered, not that AI is blocking you. Gabe tested a fully client-rendered client site that is blank with JavaScript off, and its robots.txt blocked no AI crawlers.
- ChatGPT: repeatedly said it could not read the content because the page relies on JavaScript; the favicon showed as a generic default, and links appeared only under "More."
- Perplexity: found no content on any tested URL, sometimes returning "Access Denied"; links appeared only under "Reviewed," with no snippet.
- Claude: said the URL returned no visible text.
- Control group: the same tools read non-JavaScript blog posts without trouble.
Gabe also notes that Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode and Bing Copilot can render JavaScript, so the same site may look fine in Google and be invisible in ChatGPT. Vercel's data explains why: ChatGPT downloads JavaScript files in only 11.50% of requests and Claude in 23.84%, and neither executes them. Error rates matter too: about 34–35% of their fetches hit 404 pages, versus 8.22% for Googlebot, so sites with messy URL structures are even more likely to be misread.
What three types of readers can do now
Check first, then fix in stages; do not rebuild the whole site on reflex.
- Brand owners and SMB owners: today, turn off JavaScript as described in the FAQ and open your homepage, service pages and pricing page. If your company name, services, prices or phone number disappear, those pages need fixing.
- Marketers and SEOs: pick the 10 questions people search most and ask ChatGPT to quote the first paragraph of the matching page. List the pages it cannot read, sort them by Search Console traffic and fix the top ones first.
- Developers and agencies: on new projects, output core content from the server by default and add interactivity with JavaScript on top. On existing projects, prerender for crawlers at the server layer and clean up old URLs that return 404.
Prerendering tools compared
Prerendering services are the fastest short-term fix, but they are a recurring fee that grows with page count.
| Option | Approach | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prerender.io | Generates and caches HTML for crawlers | From $59/month for 30,000 renders; $169 for 100,000 | Large sites that cannot change architecture soon |
| Alli AI | Rendering + bulk title and schema deployment | Flat tiers, higher entry price | Agencies managing many sites |
| Ostr.io | Prerendering service | See vendor plans | Small and mid-sized sites comparing quotes |
| Move to server-side rendering | Next.js, Nuxt or Laravel output HTML directly | One-time development cost | Sites due for a redesign or investing in content |
What nobody tells you
Prerendering is not a cure-all, and the test has two limits worth stating plainly.
- The evidence is qualitative: Gabe did not publish how many URLs he tested or a success rate. The conclusion comes from case observation, not large-scale statistics.
- AI traffic is still small: he notes that AI search is a small share of traffic for most sites. Rebuilding a 10-page brochure site just for it may not pay off.
- Prerendered pages go stale: if cached HTML is not refreshed when prices or opening hours change, AI reads old information, which is worse than reading nothing.
No-subscription alternatives for SMBs
Most SMB websites can fix this with a one-time adjustment rather than a long-term subscription.
- Put your company name, services, prices, address and phone number into server-rendered HTML, such as fixed text in the footer and service pages.
- Switch key pages to static generation (SSG). For a typical 10–30 page website, the work takes about 3–8 working days.
- Add structured data such as FAQPage, and make sure your sitemap lists only URLs that exist.
- Rerun the five-minute check every quarter and after every redesign.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know whether my site has this problem?
Turn off JavaScript in your browser and open your homepage. If the text disappears, you have the problem. You can also ask ChatGPT to quote the first paragraph of a page.
Can't Google's AI Overviews read it either?
Google can. Glenn Gabe notes that AI Overviews, AI Mode and Bing Copilot can all run JavaScript.
Are WordPress or Wix sites affected?
Mostly not, because they output full HTML by default. The risk is single-page apps built with React or Vue and some app-style websites.
Do I have to rebuild the whole site?
Not necessarily. Prerender your key pages first, from about $59 a month, and move core pages to server-side rendering over time.
My take
The common line is "just wait until AI crawlers learn to run JavaScript." I think the opposite. Nothing changed in 434 days, which suggests this is a cost decision, not a technical limit. Running JavaScript costs far more compute than reading HTML, and AI companies fetch hundreds of millions of pages a month; they have no reason to open a browser for every site. Over the next 18 months it is more likely that sites with readable HTML get cited and the rest get skipped, not that crawlers get smarter. Paying a monthly prerendering fee only postpones the problem.
For ScriptWalker (a Taiwanese Laravel/Flutter custom development studio), this can become a small service: an "AI readability check." A fixed process reviews a client's rendering method, 404 URLs, structured data and whether key information is plain text, and delivers a list of fixes; where architecture has to change, we quote for moving core pages to server-side output. The websites we build with Laravel already generate HTML on the server, and that is a difference we can explain to clients in plain words.
Sources
- GSQI: AI Search and JavaScript Rendering (updated Oct 19, 2026, primary)
- Vercel: The rise of the AI crawler (primary data)
- Prerender.io: Pricing update, September 2026 (primary)
- Search Engine Roundtable: Daily Search Forum Recap, October 20, 2026 (third party)
- Alli AI: Comparing rendering tools for AI search (third-party vendor comparison)