AI-Built Website Not Showing on Google? How to Check Why

Where the "invisible to Google" claim comes from

Some AI website builders make pages that are built in the visitor's browser. The server sends a short first file that is mostly instructions written in JavaScript, and the browser runs those instructions to draw the headings, text and pictures you see. This is called client-side rendering. Open that first file on its own and there can be almost nothing in it: a title, an empty box and a list of scripts.

The claim assumes search engines' crawlers (the programs that fetch and read pages) read only that first file. For Google, that isn't true. Google's documentation describes three phases (crawling, rendering and indexing) and says "Googlebot queues all pages with a 200 HTTP status code for rendering" (200 is the code a server sends when a page loads normally). A browser inside Google then runs the JavaScript and reads the finished page. The same documentation says a page "may stay on this queue for a few seconds, but it can take longer than that." So a site built in the browser isn't hidden from Google. The extra step makes indexing slower and gives it more ways to go wrong.

Where the claim does hold is outside Google. Google's documentation itself adds that "not all bots can run JavaScript". A 2024 study by Vercel, a hosting company, found that none of the major AI crawlers it measured ran JavaScript, including those behind ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. Crawlers like that read only the first file. If it's empty, an AI assistant has nothing from your page to quote.

Some builders now avoid the problem by sending search engines and AI crawlers a finished copy of each page; Lovable and Base44, for example, both document this. Whether yours does, and whether it's working on your site today, is something you can check yourself in a few minutes. That check is worth more than anyone's claim about it, ours included.

Four problems that all look like "not on Google"

"Not showing on Google" covers four different problems, each with a different fix. Google's own help makes the point about one of them: "Many people assume that they are not on Google, when in fact their page simply appears low in Search results." Find the row that sounds like yours before changing anything.

How to check what your site shows a crawler

Five checks, in this order. None of them needs any coding. Run them on your live address (your own domain, if you've connected one), not the builder's preview link.

1. Search Google for your own site

Type site: and your domain into Google, with no space: site:yourdomain.co.za. If pages come up, Google has at least some of your site. If nothing comes up, it probably has none of it yet. Treat this as a rough check only: Google says a site: search "doesn't necessarily return all the URLs that are indexed", so a page missing here isn't proof it's missing from Google.

2. Compare View Source with the page you see

Open one of your pages, then open its source: right-click the page and choose View page source, or in Chrome press Ctrl+U (Cmd+Option+U on a Mac). This is the first file your server sends, before any JavaScript runs. Use Find (Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on a Mac) to look for a sentence you can see on the page.

• You find it: the words are in the first file, so every crawler can read them, AI crawlers included.
• You don't, and the file is mostly lines starting <script around an empty box such as <div id="root">: the page is built in the browser. Google can still read it after rendering; crawlers that don't run JavaScript can't, unless your builder sends them a finished copy (see below).

One catch: a builder that makes a finished copy only for crawlers (prerendering) still sends your browser the ordinary, nearly empty file. So an empty View Source doesn't prove Google sees nothing. The next check shows what Google actually gets. None of these checks shows you exactly what an AI crawler receives: if your builder sends crawlers a finished copy, ask your AI to show you how it does that (step 2 of the prompt below).

3. Ask Google directly with URL Inspection

Google Search Console is Google's free tool for site owners. Once you've added and verified your site, its URL Inspection tool tells you whether a page is in Google's index and, if it isn't, why not. Its live test checks the page as it is right now, and Google says it lets you "see a screenshot of how the Google-InspectionTool sees the page", along with the page code Google ended up with. If the screenshot shows your content, Google can read the page. If it's blank or shows an error, you've found your problem. The same tool lets you ask Google to index the page once it's fixed. Our guide to getting your site indexed explains Search Console, sitemaps and Bing's separate index.

4. Look for anything telling search engines to stay away

A page can tell search engines to leave it out with a noindex rule. Google's documentation says that when Googlebot finds one, "Google will drop that page entirely from Google Search results". Search your View Source for the word noindex. Some builders put it on preview and test addresses on purpose, and it can come along when a site is copied or moved.

Then open yourdomain.co.za/robots.txt in your browser. This file tells crawlers which parts of the site not to fetch. A line reading Disallow: / under User-agent: * asks crawlers, Google's included, to stay out of the whole site. The two rules clash: Google says that if a page is blocked by robots.txt, "the crawler will never see the noindex rule". So if you want a page out of Google, use noindex and don't block it in robots.txt. Passwords, "coming soon" modes and sign-in walls keep crawlers out too.

5. Check that each page has its own title and description

In View Source, or the page code URL Inspection shows you, find the <title> and the <meta name="description">. Each page should have its own, describing that page. If every page carries the builder's default title, or they all share one, Google has little reason to show any of them for a specific search. Google's documentation says unique, descriptive titles and meta descriptions "help users quickly identify the best result for their goal".

If crawlers get an empty page

If check 3 shows Google getting an empty page, or check 2 and your AI's answer show other crawlers getting one, the fix is to send them the finished page instead. There are three ways to do that:

• Prerendering: visitors still get the page built in their browser, but a finished copy of each page is made and served to crawlers.
• Server-side rendering: the server builds each page before sending it, so every visitor and every crawler gets the finished page.
• Static pages: every page is built once, when the site is published, and stored as a finished file.

Before paying for a prerendering service, find out whether your builder already does one of these, and whether it's switched on for your site. Then ask your AI which option fits your project and what it would change. Moving a whole site from one kind of rendering to another is a big job, not a setting, so don't let your AI start it without telling you first what it will touch.

The prompt to give your AI

Copy this into your AI coding agent's chat, fill in the two lines in brackets, and send it before asking for any fix.

I'm not a coder. My website isn't showing up on Google, and I want
to find out why before anything is changed.

My live address is: [your domain]
What I've checked so far: [what the site: search, View Source,
URL Inspection or robots.txt showed you]

1. Tell me how this site's pages are built: in the visitor's
   browser, on the server, or as finished files when the site is
   published. Show me the file or setting that tells you.
2. Tell me whether search engines and AI crawlers get the finished
   page or a nearly empty one, and how you know.
3. Look for anything telling search engines to stay away: a noindex
   tag, robots.txt rules, a password or a preview-only setting.
   List each one you find and the file it's in.
4. Check that every page has its own title and meta description.
   List any pages that share one or have none.
5. Tell me in plain language what you found and what you would
   change. Don't change anything until I say yes.

What to check in the AI's answer

• It showed you where it looked. "Your site is fine" with no file or setting named is a guess. Ask it to show you the file.
• It kept what browsers get apart from what crawlers get. If it tells you "Google can't read JavaScript sites", that's the myth this page started with. Tell it what URL Inspection showed you and ask it to explain that instead.
• Every noindex tag or robots.txt block it found is explained. Is it there on purpose or left over? It shouldn't remove them all without asking: some pages, such as a thank-you page after a form, are meant to stay out of Google.
• Rebuilding the site isn't its first suggestion. Changing how pages are rendered is a big job. A leftover noindex tag or missing titles are small ones, and they come first.
• It doesn't claim it can put you on Google. Your AI can fix what it finds, but only Google decides when to crawl and index. Submitting to Search Console is your step, not the AI's.
• It waited for your yes. Ask it to list the files it plans to change before it changes any.

Once Google can see it

Fixing the problem doesn't put the page in Google straight away. Google says "Crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks", and that asking for a crawl "does not guarantee that inclusion in search results will happen instantly or even at all." Submit your sitemap (a file listing every page on your site) in Search Console and request indexing for your main pages, then check URL Inspection again in a week or two.

Being indexed also isn't the same as ranking. Once Google can read your pages, where they come up depends on whether they answer what people search for better than the pages already there. No setting and no "SEO hack" changes that; our look at whether SEO hacks actually work explains why.