Technical SEO · 8 min read

React and Vite SEO: why a modern site can be invisible to Google.

Quick answer

React and Vite often render content in the browser, so crawlers and AI tools can see an empty page — content they can't rank or cite. With Google's AI Mode past 1 billion monthly users, prerendering or server rendering that content properly is essential, not optional, for a modern law firm site.

Source: Google

React and Vite sites often render their content in the browser using JavaScript, which means the page can arrive almost empty and fill in only after scripts run. Search engines and AI crawlers don't always execute that JavaScript, so they may see a blank or partial page — and a page they can't read is a page that can't rank or be cited. The fix is to serve the real content in the initial HTML through prerendering or server rendering. It's a genuine engineering problem, not a setting, which is why it needs handling properly rather than assumed away.

Last updated: July 2026

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Key takeaways

  • React and Vite often render content in the browser, after the initial page loads.
  • Crawlers and AI tools may not run that JavaScript, so they can see an empty page.
  • A page a crawler can't read can't rank in Google or be cited by AI.
  • The fix — prerendering or server rendering — is engineering work, not a toggle.
  • The problem is invisible in a normal browser, so it's routinely missed.

What the crawlability problem actually is

React and Vite are excellent tools for building fast, modern websites, and this very site is built with them. But by default they often render content on the client — the browser downloads a near-empty page, then JavaScript runs and fills it with the real content. A human visitor sees a finished page and never notices.

Search engines and AI crawlers are a different audience. They don't reliably execute all that JavaScript, so they can arrive at a page and find little more than an empty shell. If the content a firm wants to rank for only appears after scripts run, there's a real risk the crawler never sees it at all.

Why it's so easy to miss

The insidious thing about this problem is that everything looks perfect. The site loads beautifully in a browser, the client is happy, and there's no error message anywhere. The failure is silent — it only shows up as pages that mysteriously never rank, or a firm that's absent from AI answers despite having good content.

Because nothing appears broken, firms often spend months on content or links wondering why nothing moves, when the real issue is that search engines were never able to read the pages in the first place.

Why the fix needs doing properly

The solution is to make the real content available in the initial HTML — through prerendering (generating static HTML for each page at build time) or server rendering — so crawlers and AI tools get the full page without running scripts. This site does exactly that, which is why its pages are readable by both Google and AI engines.

Doing it correctly is engineering work: it has to cover every important page, keep the static and interactive versions consistent, and not break the site's behaviour. It isn't a plugin or a checkbox, which is why it belongs with people who understand the framework — precisely what our Technical SEO Fixes service handles.

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Frequently asked questions

My React site looks fine — how could it have an SEO problem?

That's exactly why it's dangerous. The problem is invisible in a browser: the site looks perfect to you and your clients. It only shows up as pages that never rank or absence from AI answers, because crawlers may be seeing an empty shell where your content should be. It takes checking the raw HTML to spot it.

Does this mean React and Vite are bad for SEO?

No — they're excellent tools, and this site is built with them. The issue is only how content is rendered by default. Handled properly, with prerendering or server rendering, a React or Vite site can rank and be cited by AI just as well as any other. The framework isn't the problem; leaving it mis-configured is.

Can't I just install a plugin to fix it?

There's no reliable one-click fix. Making content crawlable means implementing prerendering or server rendering correctly across every important page and keeping it consistent with the interactive site. That's genuine engineering, which is why it's handled as a service rather than a toggle you switch on.

How do I know if my site has this problem?

It has to be checked directly — by looking at what a page returns before JavaScript runs, not just how it looks in a browser. Our SEO & AI Search Audit does exactly this and tells you whether your content is actually visible to crawlers and AI tools.