GEO checklist
From Search Visibility Wiki · By the Search Visibility Wiki editorial team · Published · Last reviewed · How we research
This GEO checklist covers the checks that matter most for appearing in AI answers: allow AI search crawlers, stay indexed and snippet-eligible, answer questions directly with sourced facts, make your brand a clear entity, earn mentions on sources engines cite, and measure across engines.
Access and eligibility
- Allow OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-SearchBot.[1][2][3]
- Firewall/CDN not blocking verified bots.
- Key pages indexed.[4]
- No unintended
nosnippet.[5] - Content rendered in HTML, not only via client-side JavaScript.[6]
- Sitemaps submitted; consider IndexNow for Bing.[7]
Content
- Direct answer near the top.
- Question-style headings.
- Sourced statistics and quotations.[8]
- Original information.[9]
- Visible author and dates.
- Updated regularly; see freshness.
Entity and off-site
- Organization markup with sameAs.[10]
- Consistent profiles; Wikidata if notable.
- Coverage on cited sources; see digital PR.
- Accurate reviews and forum presence.
Measurement
- Search Console Generative AI report.[11]
- Bing AI Performance.[12]
- AI referral segment; see AI referral traffic.
- Monthly prompt tracking.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need llms.txt for GEO?
No engine we checked requires it; Google says no special files are needed.
How often should I run the checklist?
Quarterly, and after site migrations.
Is this checklist different from SEO?
Most items are SEO fundamentals plus AI crawler and measurement checks.
See also
References
Sources accessed October 14, 2026 unless another date is given. See all sources.
- “Overview of OpenAI Crawlers”. OpenAI. accessed October 14, 2026.
- “Perplexity Crawlers”. Perplexity. accessed October 14, 2026.
- “Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler?”. Anthropic (Claude Help Center). updated April 7, 2026.
- “URL Inspection tool”. Search Console Help. accessed October 14, 2026.
- “AI features and your website”. Google Search Central. accessed October 14, 2026.
- “Understand JavaScript SEO basics”. Google Search Central. accessed October 14, 2026.
- “What is IndexNow?”. IndexNow.org. accessed October 14, 2026.
- “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization”. arXiv (Aggarwal, Murahari, Rajpurohit, Kalyan, Narasimhan, Deshpande). v1 submitted November 16, 2023; published at KDD ’24.
- “Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content”. Google Search Central. accessed October 14, 2026.
- “Organization structured data”. Google Search Central. accessed October 14, 2026.
- “Generative AI performance report (Search)”. Search Console Help. rolled out to all sites as of August 31, 2026; accessed October 14, 2026.
- “AI Performance”. Bing Webmaster Tools Help. accessed October 14, 2026.
Categories: Playbook