AI search optimization

More questions are now answered by an AI assistant, or by a summary at the top of a search page, with a few links to where the answer came from. This is a one-time job that checks whether a WordPress site can be one of those links: whether the crawlers behind those answers can reach it, what the search engines' own reports say they have done with it, and what stands in the way.

The trade calls this GEO (generative engine optimization), AEO or AI SEO. Google's own guide says it is the same work as SEO: "optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." So this is not a separate craft. It is the part of the work that concerns AI answers, done carefully, with nothing in it that the search engines themselves say does not matter.

What we check

An assistant cannot quote a page its crawler was never given. There are more places for that to go wrong than most owners know, and we check each.

• robots.txt, as your site serves it. What it tells each AI crawler by name: the ones that build an assistant's search index, the fetches made for a person who asked, and the ones that collect pages for training. They are different crawlers, and a site may want some and not others.
• What stands in front of the site. A CDN or a hosting company can turn a crawler away before WordPress is ever asked, whatever robots.txt says. We look at their settings with you.
• Plugins. A security plugin's limits and an SEO plugin's bot settings.
• Your server's log. Where the host gives access to it, we look for each crawler's name and what it was actually given. This is the only place that shows what happened and not what was meant to.
• Google's own switch. Search Console has a setting that takes a site out of Google's AI answers. We check how yours is set.
• What your pages say about being quoted. A noindex takes a page out altogether. A nosnippet or a snippet limit keeps its text out of answers. We find where each is set and whether it was meant.
• Whether the basics are in place. Google asks for no special markup or file for its AI answers. A page has to be indexed and able to be shown with a snippet, and the site must not have been taken out with the setting above. If pages are not indexed, that comes first.

You can check the first of these yourself, free: the AI crawler access check reads a site's robots.txt for every crawler at once.

What you get

• A written report. What each check found, with the documentation it rests on. Google's advice to anyone buying this kind of service is to ask whether its recommendations are aligned with Google's own guidance. Ours cite it.
• A baseline from the search engines' own reports. Search Console's report on generative AI shows how often your pages appeared in Google's AI answers, page by page. Bing Webmaster Tools reports where your pages were cited in Copilot's answers and the search phrases those answers were grounded on, which Bing says are not the users' full questions. We read both and give you the figures with the day each was read. A site that is new to either may have little or nothing to show yet.
• A list of what to change, in order. Blocks to lift, settings to correct, and pages whose answer is hidden where a crawler passes over it. Microsoft's guidance for Bing asks for a heading that states the question, a direct answer that still makes sense when lifted out of the page, and no important answer hidden in tabs or menus that expand.
• What each statement stands on. Documented by an engine, found by a study, or guesswork. We keep the three apart, and nothing is moved up.

The price is on this page. Changes on the WordPress side are quoted with the report, or go on a monthly plan.

How it works

What we do not sell, and why

• A citation, a mention or a place in an answer. No one outside an assistant decides what it says, and Google's guidance on these services says that using one does not guarantee success.
• llms.txt as a way to be quoted. Google's guide says its search ignores the file, and that it neither helps nor harms. An SEO plugin may already have made you one.
• "AI schema". Google's guide says structured data is not required for its AI answers and that there is no special markup to add. We keep structured data accurate for what it is documented to do.
• Mentions, placed lists and links. Google's guide warns against seeking inauthentic mentions, and its spam policies now cover attempts to manipulate AI responses.
• Articles by the dozen.
• A visibility score. Google says third-party tools have no access to how it ranks. What an assistant said on one day is a sample, and we would report it as one.

What it does not cover

• Being sold inside an assistant. The programs that put a store's products into AI shopping answers are open to few merchants today. A complete feed in Google's Merchant Center is the one route Google documents for any store, and it is separate work.
• Sites that are not on WordPress.
• Writing new pages.