edojapan.com — AI Site Grade

Analysis

Edo Japan: A 200-OK Ghost Town for AI Crawlers

Every page on edojapan.com returns 0 words of visible text to every AI crawler tested — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, ChatGPT-User, Applebot-Extended, and Bytespider all receive a 200 OK with a Nuxt SPA JavaScript shell and zero content. The site is a fully client-rendered Vue application with no server-side rendering, no prerendering, and no static fallback. AI crawlers that do not execute JavaScript see nothing but a <title>Edo Japan</title> tag and a splash-screen loader.

Crawler Access

The robots.txt is permissive (User-agent: * Disallow:) with no AI-bot-specific rules — no GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or Google-Extended directives exist. All 11 bot UAs tested return identical 200 responses with the same 17,756-byte JS shell. No UA-based blocking occurs. The llms.txt URL returns the same Nuxt SPA HTML instead of a text file, making it a non-functional endpoint. The site runs on Azure (A record 20.69.69.104, Azure CDN fingerprints absent) with HSTS enabled but no CSP or X-Frame-Options.

Cold-Knowledge Gap

A frontier LLM queried cold about "Edo Japan restaurant chain" returned: "I do not have specific, verifiable information about a restaurant chain named 'Edo Japan' in my training data." This is a 100% knowledge gap — the model has no prior awareness of a Canadian chain with 100+ locations operating since 1987. The site's own JSON-LD describes the brand as "Edo Japan: Masters of the Grill" with a tagline "making food simply better," but none of this reaches AI training data or live retrieval because the site serves zero parseable content.

Schema Posture

JSON-LD schema is present on every page with Organization and WebSite types, plus FAQPage on /faq and AboutPage on /about-us. However, the FAQPage schema contains no actual Question/Answer entries — it is a bare type annotation with no mainEntity. The Organization schema includes sameAs links to Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, plus a separate franchising subdomain. No Menu, MenuItem, Restaurant, LocalBusiness, or Product schema exists anywhere, despite the site being a restaurant chain with a menu, locations, and catering.

External Signals

Web searches for "Edo Japan restaurant chain Canada reviews" and "Edo Japan teriyaki Canadian restaurant chain" returned zero results from DuckDuckGo — an unusually low external footprint. The Wayback Machine snapshot from January 2024 shows the site was previously a functional WordPress site with real content, headings like "REWARD the CRAVE" and "Daily Value Deals," proper meta descriptions, and a working blog. The current Nuxt rebuild has erased all of that from the crawlable web.

Findings

1. Every page returns 0 words of visible text to AI crawlers High

   All pages on edojapan.com are Nuxt SPAs with no server-side rendering. AI crawlers that do not execute JavaScript receive a 200 OK with a JS shell and zero parseable content.

   What to change: Implement server-side rendering (SSR) or static prerendering for all pages so that crawlers receive HTML with visible text content.

2. llms.txt returns Nuxt SPA HTML instead of a text file High

   The llms.txt endpoint returns the same JavaScript shell as other pages, making it useless for AI crawlers seeking structured text.

   What to change: Serve a plain text file at /llms.txt with a summary of the brand, key pages, and structured data.

3. Frontier LLM has zero knowledge of Edo Japan High

   A cold query about 'Edo Japan restaurant chain' returned no verifiable information, indicating the brand is absent from AI training data.

   What to change: Ensure the site serves crawlable content and build external signals (press, reviews, Wikipedia) to improve AI knowledge.

4. Zero web search results for the brand High

   DuckDuckGo searches for 'Edo Japan restaurant chain Canada reviews' and similar queries returned no results, indicating an extremely low external footprint.

   What to change: Build external backlinks, listings, and social signals to increase the brand's web presence.

5. FAQPage schema has no question/answer entries Medium

   The FAQPage schema on /faq is a bare type annotation with no mainEntity, providing no structured Q&A content to crawlers.

   What to change: Add actual Question and Answer items to the FAQPage schema.

6. No Restaurant, LocalBusiness, or Menu schema present Medium

   Despite being a restaurant chain, the site lacks schema types for Restaurant, LocalBusiness, Menu, or Product, missing opportunities for rich results.

   What to change: Add LocalBusiness, Restaurant, and Menu schema to relevant pages.

7. Entire site is a client-rendered Nuxt SPA High

   The site uses Nuxt in SPA mode with no server-side rendering or prerendering, making all content invisible to non-JS crawlers.

   What to change: Switch to Nuxt SSR mode or use static generation to pre-render pages.

8. Previous WordPress content erased by Nuxt rebuild Medium

   Wayback Machine snapshots from January 2024 show the site was a functional WordPress site with real content, headings, and a blog, all lost in the current rebuild.

   What to change: Restore or recreate the lost content with proper SSR.

9. No AI-bot-specific rules in robots.txt Low

   The robots.txt has only a permissive User-agent: * rule with no directives for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or Google-Extended, leaving AI crawlers unrestricted but still receiving empty shells.

   What to change: Add specific rules for AI bots if needed, but the primary fix is to serve content.

10. Missing CSP and X-Frame-Options headers Low

    The site lacks Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options headers, though HSTS is enabled.

    What to change: Add CSP and X-Frame-Options headers for security.

What's working

• Permissive robots.txt allows all crawlers — The robots.txt has a Disallow: rule for all user agents, ensuring no crawlers are blocked by robots.txt.
• JSON-LD Organization schema present on every page — Every page includes Organization and WebSite schema with brand name, description, and social media sameAs links.
• All AI bots receive 200 OK responses — No AI bot is blocked by UA filtering; all 11 tested bots get a 200 OK, avoiding access denial issues.
• Sitemap available with 80 URLs — A sitemap is served with 80 URLs, providing a crawlable index of pages.
• HSTS header is enabled — The site sends an HSTS header, enforcing HTTPS connections.