Answers
Plain answers on AI visibility, SEO and domain security
Each page answers one question in a few lines first, then shows how to do it. Written from what SageRank checks every day.
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AI visibility
What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your brand and content easy for AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and…
What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is writing and structuring content so that search features, voice assistants and AI tools can lift a direct answer from…
What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO helps your pages rank in search results. AEO helps your content become the direct answer a search feature or assistant shows. GEO helps…
How do I get my brand mentioned by ChatGPT?
No one can guarantee that ChatGPT will name your brand, but you can raise the odds. Make your site readable to its crawlers, state…
How do I check whether ChatGPT and other AI tools know my brand?
Open a fresh, signed-out session in each assistant and ask the questions a buyer would ask: who you are, what you do, and which…
What are Google AI Overviews and how does a site appear in them?
AI Overviews are AI-written summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the pages it drew on. There…
What is brand visibility and how do you measure it?
Brand visibility is how often, and how accurately, your brand shows up where buyers look: search results, AI assistants, review sites, directories and social…
Will AI replace SEO?
No one can say for certain, but the evidence so far points to change, not replacement. AI assistants still draw on pages they can…
How do I optimize my website for Perplexity?
To optimize for Perplexity, allow its crawler (PerplexityBot) in your robots.txt, ensure content renders cleanly without JavaScript, and use schema.org structured data. Format key…
What is AI search optimization?
AI search optimization is the practice of structuring, writing, and delivering website content so generative AI systems and answer engines can easily retrieve, understand,…
AI crawlers and files
Which AI crawlers exist, and what are their user agents?
The main AI crawlers are GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User from OpenAI, ClaudeBot and Claude-User from Anthropic, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot and Bytespider. Some collect…
Should I block GPTBot and other AI crawlers?
It depends on your goal. Blocking training crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot keeps your content out of future training but does not stop…
How do I allow AI crawlers in robots.txt?
To allow AI crawlers, make sure no rule disallows them. A robots.txt with no restrictions, or with User-agent: * followed by Allow: /, lets…
What is llms.txt and do I need one?
llms.txt is a proposed plain Markdown file at the root of a website that gives AI tools a short, curated guide to the site:…
How do I write an llms.txt file?
Write llms.txt in Markdown: a first-level heading with your site name, a blockquote with a one or two sentence summary, then second-level sections that…
What is structured data (JSON-LD) and which types matter?
Structured data is machine-readable markup, usually schema.org written as JSON-LD, that tells search engines and AI tools exactly what a page is: your organisation,…
Is robots.txt still used, and what does it do?
Yes, robots.txt is still used. It is a public text file at the root of your site that tells crawlers which paths they may…
Technical SEO
Can search engines and AI crawlers read my site without JavaScript?
Many crawlers, including those behind AI assistants, read the HTML your server sends and do not run JavaScript. If your key text appears only…
What is a canonical tag and how do I use it?
A canonical tag is a link element in the page head that tells search engines which URL is the preferred version of a page…
What is hreflang and how do I set it up?
Hreflang is an annotation that tells search engines which language or regional version of a page to show to which users. Each version lists…
What should an XML sitemap include, and how do I submit it?
An XML sitemap should list only the canonical, indexable pages you want in search results, each returning a 200 status, with an accurate lastmod…
What are Core Web Vitals and what are good scores?
Core Web Vitals are three measures of real-user page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading, good at 2.5 seconds or less), Interaction to Next Paint…
Domain security
What is an SPF record?
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a DNS TXT record that lists the mail servers allowed to send email for your domain. Receiving servers check…
What is DKIM and how does it work?
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to each email you send. Your mail system signs with a private key, and receivers verify…
What is DMARC and why does it matter?
DMARC is a DNS record that tells receiving mail servers what to do with email that claims to be from your domain but fails…
How do I set up DMARC without breaking my email?
List every service that sends email as your domain, make sure each passes SPF or DKIM with alignment, publish a DMARC record with p=none…
What is HSTS and how do I enable it?
HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) is a response header that tells browsers to load your site only over HTTPS for a set time, even…
Which HTTP security headers should every website send?
Every website should send Strict-Transport-Security, a Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, a frame-ancestors rule to stop clickjacking, a Referrer-Policy and a Permissions-Policy. Start Content-Security-Policy in report-only…
What is DNS security and how do I protect my domain?
DNS security protects the records that tell the internet where your website and email live. The main steps are locking your domain at the…
Does Content Security Policy prevent XSS attacks?
A Content Security Policy reduces the damage a cross-site scripting attack can do by limiting where scripts may load from and run, but it…
Do SPF records expire?
SPF records do not expire on their own. The SPF standard contains no built-in expiration tag or validity period. An SPF TXT record remains…