Technical GEO: making a site readable to AI systems
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) means optimising a site not only for classic search but for the AI systems that compose answers from the content of real sites: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and others. Users increasingly get a finished answer in the chat without visiting the source at all — but to be in that answer, the site has to be technically legible to AI crawlers.
Here's what to check first.
1. Access for AI crawlers
Each AI system has its own crawler: OAI-SearchBot for OpenAI, PerplexityBot for Perplexity, others for other services. Check robots.txt explicitly: are key pages blocked by mistake — homepage, services, blog articles, contacts. Pages that should appear in results must not carry noindex, and every page needs a correct canonical — otherwise a crawler may pick the wrong version as the primary one.
2. Content must be text, not an image
Prices, specifications, terms — all key information must be in readable text, not baked into an image or hidden behind an interactive element that only opens on click. AI systems, like ordinary search engines, don't "press" buttons — they read HTML.
A clear heading hierarchy helps too: one H1 per page, then a logical structure of H2 and H3 for the sections. Images that carry meaning need alt text.
3. Structured data
Schema.org markup — data about the organisation, services, products, articles, events — helps AI systems and search engines understand precisely what's on the page instead of guessing from unstructured text. The same applies to a current XML sitemap: if dead or stale URLs remain in it, trust in the rest of the file falls too.
4. Internal links with meaningful text
A link labelled "read more" tells an AI system nothing about where it goes. A link labelled "Telegram bot development" does. Internal linking with descriptive anchors helps not only the user but any system trying to understand the site's structure automatically.
5. Consistent company data everywhere
Contacts, opening hours, prices and service descriptions must match on the site, in maps and in third-party directories. Discrepancies are a signal of unreliability both for classic search and for AI systems, which cross-check information across sources.
6. llms.txt and similar files aren't a priority
Special files like llms.txt or ai-data.json don't yet have universal support among AI systems. Before spending time on them, make sure the basics — standard technical SEO, structured data, readable text — are already set up correctly. Additional formats make sense on top of a solid foundation, not instead of one.
7. Forms and interfaces AI agents can understand
An increasingly relevant area is sites that AI agents interact with directly, not just people. Clear labels on form fields, buttons whose text describes the real action ("Send enquiry" rather than just "OK"), a clean separation between navigation links and action buttons, keyboard accessibility and correct behaviour on mobile — all of it matters equally to a person and to an automated agent acting on their behalf.
At Code Nova Evolution we build technical SEO and structured data in during development — the site is visible to search engines and AI systems from launch, not months of extra work later.