The short version.
- Important pages should be crawlable, indexable and eligible to show a search snippet.
- Do not block OAI-SearchBot if you want content considered for ChatGPT Search.
- Useful content, clear authorship and accurate structured data still matter.
- There is no special Google AI schema, required llms.txt file or ideal page length.
Is your site ready to be retrieved?
Check what is already true. Your score updates as you go.
1. Confirm crawl and index access
Google says pages need to be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet before they can be used in its generative search features. Check robots.txt, noindex tags, canonical tags, response codes and internal links to important pages.
OpenAI says any public website can appear in ChatGPT Search. To help content be discovered and clearly cited, publishers should allow OAI-SearchBot to access the relevant pages. OpenAI also adds a utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter to referral links, which makes that traffic easier to identify in analytics.
Check access with the actual user agents and tools available to the team. A robots file can look correct while a firewall, CDN rule or authentication layer still blocks the request.
2. Make the page worth retrieving
A technically accessible page can still be unhelpful. Google recommends original, people-first content that adds real value beyond commodity summaries. Clear authorship and bylines are useful when readers would reasonably want to know who created the material.
For a brand page, publish the details an outside writer would need to verify a claim: specifications, pricing context, product access, evidence, limitations, comparison criteria, dates and an accountable contact.
Keep those facts in visible HTML. Important information that appears only after a fragile interaction, inside an image or behind a login is harder for people and crawlers to use.
3. Use structured data for its real job
Structured data can help Google understand the entities and properties on a page and can make content eligible for supported rich results. Use accurate Organization, Article, Product, Offer, Review or other supported markup when it matches the visible page.
Do not treat schema as a secret AI-ranking layer. Google says there is no special schema required for generative search and warns against overfocusing on structured data as an AI tactic.
Validate markup, but also read the page. Perfect JSON-LD cannot rescue a thin product description, an anonymous claim or a comparison with no criteria.
4. Publish, notify and monitor
Submit sitemaps in Search Console and use URL Inspection for important changes. IndexNow can notify participating search engines when a URL is added, updated or deleted, but a successful notification does not guarantee indexing or ranking.
Measure traditional impressions, clicks and indexing alongside AI mentions, citations and referral traffic. Technical SEO creates eligibility. It does not guarantee that an engine will select the page for an answer.
Create annotations for major site changes. If visibility moves, the team can compare the timing with releases, content updates, placements and known platform changes instead of guessing.
- Review crawl and index status.
- Check OAI-SearchBot access.
- Use descriptive titles, headings and internal links.
- Add accurate, supported structured data.
- Keep facts, dates and author information current.
- Track Search Console and AI referral traffic separately.
Crawler controls are business choices
Robots directives are not a moral position or a one-time setup. They are controls. A company can allow search discovery, restrict training access or block specific crawlers based on its goals and risk tolerance.
Document the decision, the user agent, the rule and the owner. Recheck after migrations and CDN changes. OpenAI distinguishes OAI-SearchBot for search from GPTBot for training, which gives publishers more specific control.
Access can take time to update across systems. Treat a rule change as a release with a test plan, not a line copied into a file and forgotten.
Use a monthly maintenance loop
Technical readiness decays. New templates, redirects, JavaScript bundles and CMS settings can quietly change what crawlers see. A short monthly check catches problems before they become a quarter of missing data.
Review coverage, sitemap health, canonical consistency, structured-data errors, key response codes and crawler access. Then spot-check the highest-value pages as a human reader.
Keep the checklist small enough to repeat. A perfect 80-point audit performed once is less useful than a focused 12-point review the team actually maintains.