How to test whether AI can read your website
You do not need a tool for the first check. Here is the two-minute version, what a pass and a fail look like, and what to do if you fail it.
To test whether AI can read your site, open a key page and view its source (right-click, View Page Source, or put view-source: before the URL). Search the raw HTML for a sentence of your actual content. If your headings and body text are there, AI crawlers can read it. If you mostly see scripts and an empty container, your content is added by JavaScript and many AI crawlers will not see it.
The view-source method
This is the quickest honest check there is.
- Open one of your important pages in a desktop browser.
- View the page source. In most browsers you can right-click and choose "View Page Source", or type view-source: immediately before your URL in the address bar.
- You are now looking at the raw HTML the server sent, before any JavaScript ran. Use find (Ctrl-F or Cmd-F) to search for a distinctive sentence from your visible content.
That raw HTML is close to what a crawler which does not run JavaScript receives, which includes several of the AI engines.
What a pass and a fail look like
A pass: you find your heading and that sentence sitting in the source as normal text. Your content is in the page. AI crawlers can read it.
A fail: the source is mostly script tags and an almost empty container, often a single div with an id like root or app, and your sentence is nowhere to be found. Your content is being painted in by JavaScript after load, so a non-rendering crawler sees a near-empty page.
If your titles and meta tags are present but your body copy is missing, that is the classic half-fixed state: an SEO plugin has handled the head, but the content a crawler needs is still locked behind JavaScript.
What to do if you fail
The fix is to serve your content as HTML rather than leaving it as a job for the browser, through server-side rendering, static site generation, or a pre-rendering layer that serves crawlers a fully rendered snapshot. The full version, with the trade-offs of each route, is in is your website invisible to AI.
If you would rather not check page by page, a Rank Roadie audit runs this comparison across your whole site automatically, rendering each page like a browser and then checking it against what a non-rendering crawler would see. You can run a free one-page audit without an account.
Frequently asked questions
How do I view the page source?
In most desktop browsers, right-click the page and choose View Page Source, or add view-source: in front of the URL. This shows the raw HTML the server sent, before any JavaScript runs, which is close to what a non-rendering crawler receives.
Why is my page nearly empty in the source?
Because your content is being added by JavaScript after the page loads. The server sends a shell, and the browser fills it in. A crawler that does not run JavaScript only sees the shell, so your content is effectively invisible to it.
Does this affect Google too?
Usually less so. Google generally renders JavaScript, so it can often see content that AI crawlers miss. The risk is mainly with AI answer engines, which is why a page can be fine for Google and invisible to ChatGPT or Perplexity.
Adam Clarke
Adam is a Chartered Marketer and Fractional CMO with over seventeen years in B2B and B2C marketing, and the founder of Rank Roadie. He writes about the messy overlap between search, AI and keeping humans accountable in the loop.