AI SEO checklist: what matters, and what doesn't

The short answer: nine checks worth making if you want to be found on Google and named by AI assistants, the work people call AI SEO. They are checks with further reading, not a list of what decides it, and none promises a place in any answer. Each one links to the page in this guide that explains it, with the sources, and, where you can run one yourself, to the test on Check your site.

The checklist

Let crawlers read your site. Open your robots.txt and your host's bot settings. Sites that block OpenAI's search crawler "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers", though they "can still appear as navigational links" (OpenAI). On Cloudflare, "Block" also stops Googlebot, Bingbot and Applebot (Cloudflare). Explained on AI crawlers. Test: Check your site, test 1, Is the door open?
Check that Google has indexed your pages. Look up a page's address in Search Console. "URL is not on Google means that the URL can't appear in Search results" (Google). Explained on SEO basics. Test: Check your site, test 3, Does Google know your pages?
Set Google's switch for its AI answers the way you want. In Search Console, the Search generative AI control lets you decide whether your site appears in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It has been open to every website since 31 August 2026 (Google). The steps are on AI crawlers. Test 3 on Check your site opens Search Console, where this switch sits, but does not walk you through the switch.
Have Bing know your pages, and read its AI report. In Bing Webmaster Tools, a report shows how often your pages are shown as sources in Copilot and Bing's AI answers (Bing, Feb 2026). Explained, with the test, on Check your site, test 4, How does Bing, and its AI, see you?
Check that pages work on a phone, and load fast enough. "Google uses the mobile version of a site's content, crawled with the smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking" (Google, Dec 2025). That quote is about the phone version, not speed. Explained on SEO basics. Test, for speed: Check your site, test 2, How fast is it?
Say plainly what you do, where, and for whom. We suggest the words a customer would use, on your home page and in your listings. Explained on the page about why AI may not mention a business, Why doesn't ChatGPT mention my business?, on the home page, and, for AI answers, on GEO's own page.
Show who is behind the site. We suggest a real name, an About page, and details a visitor can check. This is what E-E-A-T is about; explained on its own page.
Give others a reason to talk about you. We suggest claiming your listings and asking happy customers for reviews. Explained on Why doesn't ChatGPT mention my business?
Ask an AI assistant about your site, and check its sources. We suggest you open every link it gives you. Test: Check your site, test 5, Ask your AI assistant, and make it show its sources.

Further reading: How long until Google and AI find you. If an AI assistant built your site, Croftweaver has a checklist for that case too: AI website SEO checklist.

What we left off, and why

Other checklists often carry these. We left them off, and each page below says why.

llms.txt as a must-have. Google Search ignores llms.txt (Google, Jul 2026). One large study found it is rarely read, and another found no effect on how many citations a site gets from AI models. See llms.txt: do you need one?
Structured data or FAQ markup to get quoted by AI. Google says "Structured data isn't required for generative AI search", though it is still "a good idea to continue using" it (Google, Jul 2026). See Structured data and FAQs.
A score for your site from an AI assistant. When we asked three assistants, in the same words, to score the same page, their scores were 23 points apart. See the section about scores on the E-E-A-T page, and test 5 on Check your site.

Checked on 7 November 2026.