How to check the five fundamentals of AI search visibility

What the five fundamentals are

Why they are questions, not tricks

What you need to check the five fundamentals of AI search visibility

• Access to Google Search Console with the site added as a property
• A web browser, for viewing a page's source code and your robots.txt file
• Your home page and three to five important pages
• A notebook or spreadsheet to record a yes, no or unsure for each check

Check the five fundamentals of AI search visibility, step by step

1. 1

   Entities: check that your organisation is clear and consistent

   Look at your home page. Is it clear who you are, what you do, and are your name and contact details the same wherever they appear on the site? Then view the page source and search for Organization to see whether organisation markup exists. Google says adding it to your home page can help it understand your organisation's administrative details and disambiguate it in search results, and that no properties are required. It describes understanding, not a guaranteed result. See Organization structured data.

   You will know it worked when You have a yes or no for consistent details, and know whether organisation markup is present.

2. 2

   Access: check crawlers can reach the page

   Open /robots.txt on your site and look for rules covering your important pages. Google says robots.txt is mainly for managing crawl traffic and is not a mechanism for keeping a page out of Google. Then check that links are real <a> elements with an href, because Google says it generally can only crawl links in that form. If your site relies on JavaScript, note that Google runs it with an evergreen Chromium but also says server-side or pre-rendering remains a good idea. See robots.txt, crawlable links and JavaScript SEO basics.

   You will know it worked when Important pages are not blocked, and their navigation links are ordinary anchor links.

3. 3

   Structured data: check it is accurate and visible

   If your pages have structured data, compare it with what a visitor can see. Google's general guidelines say not to mark up content that is not visible to readers, nor irrelevant or misleading content, and that correct markup does not guarantee a feature will show. Test a page with Google's Rich Results Test. Google's AI features guide adds that there is no special schema.org markup to add for those features. See the general guidelines.

   You will know it worked when Every fact in your markup also appears on the page, and the test shows no errors you do not understand.

4. 4

   Content: ask Google's self-assessment questions

   For each important page, ask the questions in Google's helpful content guidance. Does it provide original information, reporting, research or analysis? Does it describe the topic substantially and completely? Are you producing lots of content on many topics, or mainly summarising what others say? Google says it has no preferred word count. See creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.

   You will know it worked when Each page has an honest yes, no or unsure against those questions, and the weakest pages are noted.

5. 5

   Authority: check trust signals and where links come from

   The same guidance says trust is the most important part of E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness). Check for clear sourcing, background on the author or the site, and an About page. Then review your links. Google's spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges and automated link creation as link spam. See the spam policies.

   You will know it worked when Pages show who wrote them and where facts come from, and you know of no purchased or automated links.

6. 6

   Record the gaps and fix the access problems first

   Look at your notes. Start with access problems, because Google's documentation says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to be a supporting link in its AI features. Use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to confirm the page is indexed. See the URL Inspection help. Order the rest by how clearly each breaks a point Google makes.

   You will know it worked when You have a short list of fixes. Inspected pages show as on Google.

Common mistakes when you check the five fundamentals of AI search visibility

• Treating markup as a substitute for visible, consistent facts on the page.
• Blocking a page in robots.txt and expecting it to disappear from results. Google says use noindex or a password instead.
• Publishing at scale for coverage, which Google's guidance names as a warning sign.
• Buying links and calling it authority, when Google lists it as link spam.
• Expecting any one fix to guarantee a citation. Google says meeting every requirement does not guarantee crawling, indexing or serving.

Terms used when you check the five fundamentals of AI search visibility

Entity

A distinct thing such as an organisation or person that a search system can identify and tell apart from similar ones.

Structured data

Code added to a page that labels its facts in a standard format, so search systems can read them.

robots.txt

A file at the root of your site that tells crawlers which addresses they may access.

E-E-A-T

Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, the qualities Google's guidance asks you to consider when assessing content. Google says trust matters most.

Link spam

Creating links to or from a site mainly to manipulate rankings, such as buying links.

Sources for how to check the five fundamentals of AI search visibility

• AI features and your website | Google Search Central
• Organization Schema Markup | Google Search Central
• Robots.txt Introduction and Guide | Google Search Central
• SEO Link Best Practices for Google | Google Search Central
• Understand JavaScript SEO Basics | Google Search Central
• General Structured Data Guidelines | Google Search Central
• Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content | Google Search Central
• Spam Policies for Google Web Search | Google Search Central
• URL Inspection tool | Search Console Help