Static Site Generation (SSG)
Static site generation is when pages are pre-rendered to finished HTML files at build time, so every visitor and crawler gets fully-formed, fast-loading content with no per-request work.
Also known as: SSG, static generation
Static site generation bakes your pages into ready HTML ahead of time. Instead of building the page on each request, the site is rendered once at build time into static files that are served as-is. The result is the same crawler-friendly outcome as SSR — complete HTML in the first response — with even faster delivery, since there's no server computation per visit.
For AEO, SSG is close to ideal. The content is fully present for AI crawlers that don't run JavaScript, and pages load fast, helping both First Contentful Paint and reliable crawling — the access pillar. The trade-off is freshness: because pages are built in advance, frequently changing content needs a rebuild or a hybrid approach to stay current, which is worth planning around.
Example. A documentation site or blog generated with a static framework ships plain HTML files to a CDN. Crawlers read the text instantly, visitors get sub-second loads, and there's no app server to slow down or fail — a strong default for content meant to be cited.
Relevant pillar
Related terms
- Server-Side Rendering (SSR)Server-side rendering is when a web server generates a page's full HTML for each request and sends it ready-to-read, so content is present immediately for both browsers and AI crawlers.
- First Contentful Paint (FCP)First Contentful Paint is a performance metric measuring how long after navigation the browser renders the first piece of page content, used as a proxy for how quickly a page becomes useful.