The curl test: a one minute check that your content is in the HTML crawlers receive
One command shows whether a page's key text is in the HTML a crawler receives, or only appears after JavaScript runs. It works on any site, whatever it is built with.
Owners are often told their site is invisible to AI, or that it is fine, without any evidence either way. The curl test gives a direct answer in about a minute.
Open Terminal on macOS or PowerShell on Windows and run curl https://yourdomain.com, using your own address. Search the output for your headline, your business name and your main service.
If those words appear as plain text inside HTML tags, crawlers can read the page. Most hosted builders, including Wix, Squarespace and WordPress, serve their text this way. If the words are missing and you see an empty <div id="root"></div> followed by script tags, the page is built in the browser. Many AI crawlers do not run JavaScript, so they receive the empty version.
Check more than the homepage. Service pages, location pages and pricing pages are the ones AI apps quote, and they are sometimes built differently from the homepage.
Passing the test means the site is readable, not that AI apps will name you. That depends on what your pages say and what third party sources say about you, which is what our baseline measures.