Prerendering
Generating and caching a fully rendered HTML snapshot of a JavaScript page at build time or on request, so crawlers receive complete markup.
TechnicalSSR
Server-side rendering
Generating a page's full HTML on the server for each request, so crawlers and users receive complete markup without executing JavaScript.
In full
SSR removes dependence on the search engine's render queue and is the only reliable way to be readable by crawlers and AI agents that do not run JavaScript. Modern frameworks combine SSR with hydration, streaming and partial pre-rendering. The trade-offs are server cost and TTFB, which is why SSR is usually paired with edge caching; static generation is preferable where content changes rarely.
Example
Migrating a client-rendered catalogue to SSR makes product specifications appear in the raw HTML, and they start ranking within weeks.
Related terms
Hydration
Attaching client-side JavaScript behaviour to server-rendered HTML so a static page becomes interactive.
JavaScript rendering
The execution of a page's client-side JavaScript by a search engine so that content and links generated at runtime become indexable.
Single-page application
An architecture where one HTML shell loads and JavaScript handles all subsequent routing and content updates without full page loads.
Render queue
The deferred queue in which Google executes a page's JavaScript with a headless Chromium instance after the raw HTML has already been…