Do AI crawlers run JavaScript?

Most do not. Google and Bing render JavaScript, but the majority of AI answer-engine crawlers — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and others — read the raw HTML only. If your content appears after JavaScript runs, those crawlers see an empty page.

AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization: structuring your content so AI answer engines can extract, trust and cite it. It overlaps with SEO but optimizes for being quoted in an answer rather than ranked in a list of links.

What is an llms.txt file?

llms.txt is a plain-text file at the root of your domain (like robots.txt) that gives language models a concise, curated summary of your site and links to your most important pages. It is an emerging convention for helping AI understand a site quickly.

Does structured data help with AI citations?

Yes. JSON-LD structured data states facts in a machine-readable form — who you are, what you sell, your prices and FAQs — so an AI can lift them without guessing. It is one of the highest-leverage things you can add for AEO.

How to make your website readable — and citable — by AI

AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews — are becoming a primary way people find businesses. But there's a catch most site owners miss: many of these systems can't actually read a modern website. If your pages are built as a JavaScript single-page app, an AI crawler may see nothing but an empty shell.

This article explains why, and gives you a concrete checklist to make your website both readable and citable by AI.

Why AI often can't read your site

A traditional search engine like Google runs a full browser: it loads your page, executes the JavaScript, waits for the content to appear, and then indexes it. Most AI crawlers do not do this. They fetch the raw HTML and read whatever text is already there.

If you built your site with a client-rendered framework, your initial HTML is often just this:

<body>
  <div id="root"></div>
  <script src="/app.js"></script>
</body>

A human with a browser sees a beautiful site. An AI crawler sees an empty div. It has nothing to read, nothing to quote, and nothing to cite.

The fix, in one sentence

Put your real content — as plain, readable text — into the HTML the server sends, before any JavaScript runs. Everything below is a way of doing that well.

The checklist

1. Serve real text in the initial HTML

This is the non-negotiable foundation. Use server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), or prerendering so that the words on your page exist in the HTML response. A quick test: disable JavaScript in your browser and reload. If the page is blank, AI can't read it either.

2. Add structured data (JSON-LD)

Structured data states your facts in a format machines parse without ambiguity: your organization, your services, your prices, your FAQs. Add a JSON-LD block to your <head> using schema.org types like Organization, Service, Offer and FAQPage. This is the single highest-leverage addition for being quoted accurately.

3. Publish an llms.txt

Create a plain-text llms.txt at the root of your domain — the same idea as robots.txt, but aimed at language models. Give a short description of who you are and link to your most important pages. It's an easy win that helps AI summarize you correctly.

4. Write in a question-and-answer style

AI answer engines extract answers. Make that trivial: use a clear question as a heading, then answer it directly in the first sentence underneath. A dedicated FAQ section — mirrored in FAQPage structured data — is one of the most citable formats there is.

5. State concrete facts in plain language

Vague marketing copy is hard to cite. Specifics are easy. Compare:

Vague (hard to cite)	Concrete (easy to cite)
"Affordable websites"	"Websites from €100, one-off"
"Fast turnaround"	"First preview delivered in 5 working days"
"Trusted by many"	"Founded 2023, based in Milan"

Numbers, dates, names and prices give an AI something it can repeat with confidence.

6. Lead with the answer (the inverted pyramid)

Put a short, direct summary at the top of every important page — a TL;DR an AI can lift wholesale. Don't bury the conclusion under three paragraphs of build-up. The first 40–60 words should answer the page's core question on their own.

How to know it's working

You can't see AI indexing the way you see Google Search Console, but you can check the inputs:

View source (not "inspect") on your pages — your real content should be in the HTML.
Disable JavaScript and reload — the page should still be readable.
Ask the AI directly: query ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity about your business and see whether it answers accurately and cites you.

Where Lumindis fits

Making a site that humans and AI can read is exactly the kind of work we do. Lumindis Studio builds websites that ship real content in the HTML, with structured data and AEO built in from the start — so you show up when someone asks an AI for a recommendation, not just when they scroll a list of blue links.

If you want a site that AI can read and cite, you can configure one from €100 or see the full pricing.