{"id":2244,"slug":"vercel-merj-rendering-study-2024-summary","title":"Vercel + MERJ July 2024 rendering study — analyzed 100,000+ Googlebot fetches; 100% HTML pages rendered; median delay 10s, p75 26s, p90 ~3h, p95 ~6h, p99 ~18h; VENDOR INCENTIVE FLAGGED + high-authority test sites","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"internal","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["rendering-architecture","client-side-js-indexing-risk"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** The most-cited independent rendering dataset is the **July 2024 Vercel + MERJ study** (\"How Google handles JavaScript throughout the indexing process\"), which analyzed over **100,000 Googlebot fetches** (with ~37,000 render beacons matched against server logs on **nextjs.org, monogram.io and basement.io**, April 1–30, 2024, using MERJ's Web Rendering Monitor + Edge Middleware).\n\nHeadline findings:\n- **\"Successfully rendered 100% of HTML pages, including those with complex JavaScript.\"**\n- **\"No significant difference in rendering success rate based on JavaScript complexity.\"**\n- Rendering delay distribution: **median 10 seconds, 75th percentile 26 seconds, 90th percentile ~3 hours, 95th ~6 hours, 99th ~18 hours.** (25th percentile rendered within the first 4 seconds.)\n\nThis is strong evidence that Google *can* render JS well.\n\n**Source:** Vercel + MERJ, July 2024 (\"How Google handles JavaScript throughout the indexing process\").\n\n**Confidence:** Medium-high. Methodology disclosed, results published.\n\n**Caveat:** **Quarantined vendor figure.** Three decisive caveats:\n1. **Commercial incentive** — Vercel sells Next.js hosting/frontend cloud; the conclusion supports the business case; the primary test site is Vercel's own nextjs.org; a co-author is Vercel's CTO.\n2. **Survivorship / selection bias** — every test site (nextjs.org, monogram.io, basement.io) is an established, high-authority, heavily-linked property. The study **does not test new or low-authority domains**. The rosy medians plausibly reflect crawl/render priority Google grants important sites.\n3. **Even Vercel's own data rates CSR \"Poor\"** on crawl efficiency and warns \"might not be indexed if rendering fails.\"\n\nFor the contrasting zero-authority datapoint see [[onely-2022-9x-js-discovery-delay-zero-authority]]. For the new-site verdict see [[google-csr-conditional-gate-for-new-sites]] and [[rule-ssr-or-ssg-default-for-indexable-content]].","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"onely-2022-9x-js-discovery-delay-zero-authority","title":"Onely November 2022 experiment (Ziemek Bućko) — brand-new zero-authority test subdomain; JS-folder page 7 took 313 HOURS vs HTML 36 hours (9x slower); first link 52h vs 25h — different stage (discovery, not render) but the high-authority/low-authority contrast is the point","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"non-google-ai-crawlers-do-not-execute-js-vercel-merj","title":"Vercel + MERJ — non-Google AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) do NOT execute JavaScript; over 500M GPTBot fetches tracked with zero evidence of JS execution","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-launch-build-technical-foundation-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the launch-build technical foundation — what the technology must get right before a new site can be found (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"google-csr-conditional-gate-for-new-sites","title":"Google CONDITIONAL gate — critical content locked behind client-side JS gates indexing for new low-authority sites; high-authority sites are largely fine; the bite is concentrated where it hurts most","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-25T16:10:58.343Z","updated_at":"2026-06-25T17:07:10.774Z"}