AI Search Optimization Checklist: 30 Checks for Your Website

Most AI search advice tells you what to think about. This checklist tells you what to check. There are thirty items, grouped into eight areas, and each one has a pass condition and a way to test it. You can work through the first half in an afternoon with Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and a browser.

The checks follow the order in which AI search tools actually encounter a site: can they reach it, is it indexed, can they understand it, is it worth quoting, and can you see the results. Fix failures in that order. A brilliant page that no crawler can reach will never be cited.

Every check is based on published guidance from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI or Perplexity, linked where it first appears. Where a check is our own recommendation rather than platform guidance, we say so.

How to Score Yourself

Mark each check pass, fail or not applicable. Then:

• Any failure in checks 1 to 11 is urgent. These decide whether you can appear at all.
• Failures in checks 12 to 28 limit how well you are understood and how much of your content can be used.
• Failures in checks 29 and 30 limit how much you can learn and improve.

A site passing all of 1 to 11 has cleared the technical bar. Everything after that is about competing well.

Access for AI Crawlers (Checks 1 to 6)

Check 6 is where good intentions go wrong. Some sites block every AI crawler to protect their content and lose search visibility in the process. OpenAI’s search and training crawlers are independent, and Google says Google-Extended “does not impact a site’s inclusion in Google Search”. Our robots.txt guide shows the syntax.

Indexing and Eligibility (Checks 7 to 11)

Checks 7 to 10 are the Google side of eligibility; our guide to optimising for Google AI Overviews explains each one. If check 7 fails widely, stop here and read why a website does not show on Google. Google’s AI features page is explicit that there are no extra technical requirements for AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet.

Failing checks 1 to 11? Our SEO audit, from KES 25,000, documents every failure with a fix list you keep. Ask for AI crawler access to be in scope. Book an SEO audit.

Site Structure and Internal Links (Checks 12 to 14)

Google lists internal links and “making sure that important content is available in textual form” among the fundamentals for AI features. Our guide to internal linking covers the practice.

Business Facts and Identity (Checks 15 to 19)

These five are our recommendation rather than a platform requirement. They follow from Google’s note that its AI features can reflect what is said about businesses across the web, and its warning against seeking “inauthentic mentions”. If you need more reviews, our guide to getting more Google reviews explains how to ask properly.

Structured Data (Checks 20 and 21)

Structured data is useful for rich results and clarity, and Google recommends continuing to use it. It is not required for AI features, and Google’s AI features page asks you to make sure it “matches the visible text on the page”.

Content Worth Citing (Checks 22 to 26)

Checks 25 and 26 come straight from Google’s guide to generative AI features, which asks for “non-commodity” content and warns that creating pages for every query variation breaches its scaled content abuse policy. Our explainer on query fan-out explains how to cover related questions without that risk.

Freshness and Updates (Checks 27 and 28)

Measurement (Checks 29 and 30)

Google’s Generative AI performance report shows impressions only, by page, country, device and date. Clicks from AI features sit inside the normal Performance report. Our guide to tracking SEO leads in GA4 shows how to connect visits to enquiries.

Things That Are Not on This List

You will find these on other checklists. They are left off this one because the platforms say they are unnecessary for Google Search:

• An llms.txt file. Google says its Search ignores it. It is harmless if another service uses it.
• “Chunking” content into small pieces. Google says it is not required.
• Rewriting content in a special style for AI. Google says you do not need to.
• Buying mentions or reviews. Against policy everywhere, and Google says it does not help.

Prioritising Your Fixes

If you have a list of failures, fix them in this order:

1. Access and indexing (1 to 11). These are usually quick technical fixes with an outsized effect.
2. Business facts (15 to 19). Low cost, mostly admin, and they help local search too.
3. Text and structure (12 to 14, 20, 21). Often a developer task of a few hours.
4. Content (22 to 28). The slowest and most valuable. Work through your most important pages first.
5. Measurement (29 and 30). Set up once, then review monthly.

For the reasoning behind each area, read our AI search optimization guide. For the mechanism behind the access checks, see how AI search engines find and cite websites.

Want Us to Run the Checklist?

We run these thirty checks as part of our SEO audits, from KES 25,000, and fix them as part of our AI search optimization work inside every SEO package. You get a written list of passes and failures with the fix for each.

Book an SEO audit: send us your website, call 0741 312 101 or message us on WhatsApp.