Raw HTML is the original markup a server returns for a page — the source document exactly as delivered, before the browser runs JavaScript and rewrites the document tree.
| Term | Raw HTML |
|---|---|
| Category | Page Structure and Technical SEO |
| Also known as | Page Source, Unrendered HTML |
| Where it appears | Technical analysis and diagnostic comparisons |
What it means in RankGear
Raw HTML is what the server hands back in the initial response — the same markup you would see through “view source” — before any client-side script has executed. RankGear uses it in technical analysis as one of two views of a page. The other is the Rendered DOM, the tree the browser has built after running JavaScript. The two can differ sharply: a heading, a block of copy, or a set of links that only appears after a framework hydrates the page will be present in the Rendered DOM but absent from the Raw HTML. Holding both views lets RankGear show what actually shipped in the source versus what the browser assembled on top of it.
How to interpret it
Treat Raw HTML as a question of delivery, not just presence. An element that shows up in the rendered page can be missing, empty, or duplicated in the source, and that gap matters because not every consumer of a page executes JavaScript the way a modern browser does. When an important element — a title, canonical tag, main content, or internal links — exists only after rendering, that is a signal worth examining rather than a defect on its own. Read the Raw HTML side by side with the Rendered DOM, and look at where they disagree.
| View | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Raw HTML | The server’s initial response, before scripts run — what “view source” shows. |
| Rendered DOM | The document tree after the browser executes JavaScript and mutates the page. |
Example
You analyze a product page built on a client-side framework. In the Rendered DOM, RankGear finds the H1, the product description, and a block of related-item links. Comparing against the Raw HTML, it shows the source response contains only an empty container div — the H1 and description are injected by JavaScript after load. That difference tells you the page depends on script execution to expose its main content, which is exactly the kind of discrepancy the two-view comparison is built to surface.
Important considerations
- Raw HTML is a diagnostic view of how a page is delivered, not a score — a difference from the Rendered DOM is information to investigate, not automatically a problem.
- Whether a source-versus-rendered gap matters depends on the element and the context; an element present only after rendering is worth a closer look, not an automatic failure.
- Technical conformance in the source markup supports machine readability, but clean Raw HTML does not by itself cause a page to rank.
- Any comparison RankGear draws against ranking pages is a comparative indicator of how your page differs from competitors, not a value Google assigns.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.