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7 Checks Developers Should Make So AI Search Can Read Their Site
Published inSEO & SEM·
October 23, 2026
·Updated:October 24, 2026
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Search results now include AI-written answers that cite pages, and people increasingly ask chat tools for recommendations instead of scrolling a list of links. For developers, this does not mean learning a new discipline. It means making sure the basics are in place so that crawlers and answer engines can reach, read and quote your pages.
Most problems are plain engineering mistakes: a blocked crawler, a page that renders nothing without JavaScript, or markup that disagrees with the visible text. This article covers seven checks, including one script you can run against your own robots.txt.
1. Make Sure the Page Can Be Indexed
AI features in search do not need a special file or a special format. Google’s documentation on AI features and your website states that a page needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet, and that there are no additional technical requirements. It also says there is no need for new AI-specific files or special schema.org markup.
So start with the fundamentals. Check for accidental noindex tags after a deploy, confirm important pages return a 200 status, and make sure staging settings never reach production.
2. Keep Important Content in Text
Answer engines read text. If your key information lives in images, canvas elements or content that only appears after a client-side script runs, a crawler may never see it. View the pagees, definitions and steps should be present as real text
3. Make Structured Data Match the Page
Structured data helps systems understand a page, but only if it agrees with what visitors see. SitePoint’s guide to JSON-LD for developers shows how to build markup that search and AI systems can parse. Generate it from the same data that renders the page, and validate it after every template change. Markup that contradicts the visible text is worse than no markup.
4. Decide Crawler Access on Purpose
Your robots.txt decides which crawlers may fetch your pages. Some sites block AI crawlers deliberately, and others block them by accident through a broad rule. SitePoint’s technical guide to working with a marketing agency lists robots.txt decisions about which crawlers may access the site among the checks developers should own.
This small function reads a robots.txt string and reports which common AI-related crawlers are blocked from the whole site:
constAI_BOTS=["GPTBot","ClaudeBot","PerplexityBot","Google-Extended"];functionblockedBots(robotsTxt){const blocked =[];let agents =[];let lastWasAgent =false;for(const raw of robotsTxt.split("n")){const line = raw.split("#")[0].trim();if(!line)continue;const[key,...rest]= line.split(":");const field = key.trim().toLowerCase();const value = rest.join(":").trim();if(field ==="user-agent"){if(!lastWasAgent) agents =[];agents.push(value);lastWasAgent =true;continue;}lastWasAgent =false;if(field ==="disallow"&& value ==="/"){for(const bot ofAI_BOTS){const hit = agents.some((a)=> a ==="*"|| a === bot);if(hit &&!blocked.includes(bot)) blocked.push(bot);}}}return blocked;}Run it against your live robots.txt. If a crawler appears in the list and you did not intend that, fix the rule. Note that blocking a crawler is a legitimate choice. The goal is that it is a decision and not an accident.
5. Get an Outside Review of How You Appear
Developers can check access and markup, but judging how a brand shows up in AI answers often needs someone who tracks that area full time. An AI search consultant such as Austin Heaton works on answer engine optimization.
6. Measure What You Can
Traffic from AI features in Google Search is included in the Search Console Performance report under the Web search type. Set up that report, tag your own campaigns with consistent UTM parameters, and watch referral traffic from chat tools in your analytics. You cannot control the answers, but you can see whether clicks arrive.
7. Recheck After Every Release
Most visibility problems appear after a deployment: a template change drops the structured data, a new rule blocks a crawler, or a redesign hides text behind a script. Add a small post-deploy test for the checks above. A failing robots.txt check or a missing JSON-LD block should stop the release before a crawler finds the problem.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need an llms.txt file or special markup for AI search? Google’s documentation says no new AI-specific files or special structured data are needed for its AI features. Standard indexing and crawling requirements apply.
Should I block AI crawlers? That depends on your goals. Blocking is a legitimate choice, but make it deliberately and review it regularly.
Where do I see AI search traffic? For Google, AI feature traffic is counted in the Search Console Performance report under the Web search type. Other tools show up as referrals in your analytics.
Summary
Making a site readable to AI search is mostly ordinary engineering: keep pages indexable, put key content in text, keep structured data consistent, decide crawler access on purpose, measure what you can and retest after every release. The robots.txt check above is small, but it catches one of the most common accidental blocks before it costs you visibility.
