For website owners and marketers concerned about AI bots scraping their valuable content, a recent study by Vercel and MerJ has revealed an intriguing and potentially useful insight: most AI crawlers struggle significantly with JavaScript.
This finding applies to several major AI crawlers, including:
- Googlebot (Gemini)
- GPTBot (OpenAI)
- Claude
- AppleBot
- PerplexityBot
The power of JavaScript, even it’s challenging somehow
By using heavy JavaScript rendering, you’re essentially putting on an invisibility guard that works on most AI crawlers.
There’s one notable exception: Googlebot, which still manages to render JavaScript effectively. For now, other AI crawlers find themselves at a disadvantage when faced with JavaScript-heavy sites.
What this means for website owners
If you’re worried about AI scraping your content, you might want to cosy up to JavaScript. However, it’s important to note that this approach comes with trade-offs. While it may deter AI bots, it could also potentially hide your content from human visitors who rely on AI-powered search to find your site.
So what you should do:
- Use it strategically to protect your most valuable content.
- Start with crawler-friendly content, then enhance it with JavaScript.
- If you depend on AI search for traffic, consider a more balanced approach.
Conclusion
Who would have thought that JavaScript would become an unexpected ally in the battle against AI content scraping? While it’s an interesting development, it’s probably not a long-term solution. SEO is constantly evolving. Today’s clever tactic might become obsolete tomorrow. We suggest you analyse and adapt the strategy or tactic that works best for you.
