AI search is now where a lot of buyers ask first. If the answer names your competitor and not you, that is a lost sale you never saw.
The good news: the rules are public. I read them today so you do not have to guess.
Free stuff to grab first
- The open source AI Employees. Eight roles, MIT licensed, free to open. The SEO/AEO role is a fast place to start if you want an agent working on this for you. Grab the AI Employees
- Google's AI features guide for site owners. The official word on how your pages show up in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Short and worth ten minutes. Google Search Central
- OpenAI's crawler docs. Lists the three bots that touch your site and what each one does. OpenAI bots
I only link pages I opened today.
What Google says (it is blunter than you think)
Google's guide says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Its words:
There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.
No new files. No special markup. The guide says you do not need "new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup", and no special schema.org data either.
What it does require is plain:
- The page is indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet.
- Crawling is allowed in robots.txt.
- Internal links and structured data match what the page says.
And the honest part: "Indexing and serving isn't guaranteed."
So if someone sells you a magic AI file, read that page first.
What OpenAI says: three bots, three jobs
This is where people trip. OpenAI lists three crawlers.
| Bot | What it is for |
|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | Surfaces sites in ChatGPT search. Block it and you will not appear in search answers. |
| GPTBot | Crawls content that may train OpenAI's models. Blocking it opts out of training. |
| ChatGPT-User | Visits a page when a user's question needs it. Not automatic crawling. |
Each setting is independent. You can allow OAI-SearchBot and block GPTBot. OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, and says changes can take about 24 hours to apply.
Check your robots.txt today. A blanket block written two years ago to stop training can also hide you from search answers.
A 20 minute checklist
- Open robots.txt. Is OAI-SearchBot allowed? Is Google crawling you?
- Check indexing in Search Console. No index, no AI answer.
- Write pages that answer one question each, in plain words, near the top.
- Add comparison and FAQ pages for the questions buyers type.
- Keep structured data honest. It must match what is on the page.
- Ask the engines your buyer questions and write down who gets named.
That last one is the fun one. Do it before you change anything, so you have a baseline.
Where I would go next
Doing this for one site is a weekend. Doing it for a client, every month, is a service.
That is why I built GEO Launchpad v2. The page says it turns any website into "75+ assets built to be cited by AI engines": long-form articles, FAQ answers, comparison drafts, local pages, PR ideas and a 90-day roadmap, scored against buyer prompts. Members get the source repo and a deployment license for client work.
It sits in the Agent Ops Club product pass. See GEO Launchpad v2
Start with the free list. Upgrade only if you want the tool.
Building with agents and want company? Join the Vibe Coding is Life community: the Facebook group or the Skool community. Say hi and tell me what you are building.
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