How to Check if Google Can See Your Website (30-Second Test)
Three tests anyone can run, right now, with no special tools. Find out in 30 seconds whether Google can actually read your site.
Test 1: The View Source Test
This is the fastest way to see what Google sees. It takes about ten seconds and requires nothing except a browser.
1 Open your website in any browser
Navigate to your homepage or any page you want to check.
2 Right-click and choose "View Page Source"
Do NOT click "Inspect" or "Inspect Element." Those show the rendered DOM after JavaScript runs. You need the raw HTML that the server sends — the same HTML Google receives when it crawls your page.
3 Look at what is in the HTML
Here is what a problematic page source looks like:
<head>
<title>My App</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="root"></div> <!-- empty -->
<script src="/static/js/bundle.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
No headings. No text. No content. Just an empty div and a script tag.
Now here is what a healthy page source looks like:
<head>
<title>Best Coffee Shop in Portland | Daily Grind</title>
<meta name="description" content="Portland's favorite coffee shop since 2018...">
</head>
<body>
<h1>Portland's Best Coffee, Brewed Fresh Daily</h1>
<p>We have been serving hand-roasted coffee in the Pearl District...</p>
<a href="/menu.html">View Our Menu</a>
</body>
</html>
Real headings. Real text. Real links. Google can read everything.
If your page source looks like the first example — an empty <div id="root"> and a JavaScript file — that is what Google sees. Your content is invisible to search engines.
Test 2: The site: Search Test
Open Google and type site:yourdomain.com (replace with your actual domain). This shows every page Google has indexed from your site.
1 Check if any pages appear at all
If nothing shows up, Google has not indexed your site. This usually means either Google cannot find your pages or the content is invisible (client-side rendered JavaScript).
2 Check the titles and descriptions
If pages appear but every result shows a generic title like "React App" or "Vite App," your meta tags are static. This is a common React SPA issue — every page shares the same default title because the server sends the same HTML shell regardless of the URL.
3 Check how many pages are listed
If you have 20 pages on your site but Google only shows 1 or 2, most of your content is not being indexed. Google crawled your site, found no content on the inner pages, and decided not to include them.
Test 3: Google Search Console
This is the definitive test. If you have Google Search Console set up, it will tell you exactly what Google sees.
1 Go to Pages in Search Console
Open Google Search Console and navigate to the Pages report (formerly called Coverage). Look for pages with the status "Crawled — currently not indexed."
2 Click any affected URL
Select one of the pages listed under that status. Then click "View Crawled Page" to see exactly what Google received when it visited your URL.
3 Compare the crawled version to your actual page
If the crawled page is empty or shows only a loading spinner, that confirms Google cannot render your JavaScript. It crawled the page, saw nothing useful, and declined to index it.
If you are seeing "Crawled — currently not indexed" across multiple pages, that is the clearest signal that your site has a rendering problem. We wrote a detailed guide on what that status means and how to fix it: Crawled — Currently Not Indexed: The Fix.
What the Results Mean
Good news: If your page source contains real headings, text, and links — and Google shows correct titles in site: search results — your site is crawlable. Google can see your content.
Bad news: If your page source is an empty <div> with a JavaScript file, or your site: search shows generic titles, or Search Console shows "Crawled — currently not indexed" — your site uses client-side rendering. Google is visiting your pages and finding nothing to index.
This is not a minor SEO issue you can fix with better keywords or more backlinks. It is an architectural problem. The server is not sending your content in the HTML response. Until that changes, no amount of SEO work will help because Google literally cannot read the page.
What to Do Next
If any of the tests revealed empty content, you have two realistic options:
Option A: Convert to static HTML
Your React components are rebuilt as plain .html, .css, and .js files. Every page becomes a real HTML document with all content in the source. Google can read it immediately. No framework required.
This is what we do. The conversion is a one-time process. You get clean files you can host anywhere — Netlify, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages — for free. No ongoing subscription. No platform dependency. You own the files.
Option B: Implement server-side rendering (SSR)
Migrate your project to a framework like Next.js that renders pages on the server before sending them to the browser. This keeps you in the React ecosystem while making content visible to crawlers.
The trade-off: SSR is significantly more complex. It requires a Node.js server (or serverless functions), careful configuration, ongoing hosting costs, and developer maintenance. For a marketing site or landing page, it is usually overkill.
For most sites built with AI builders like Base44 or Lovable, static HTML conversion is the simpler, faster, and more cost-effective path. For a deeper comparison of the approaches, see our guide on Prerender.io vs HTML Conversion.
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