GEO technical audit checklist: 25 items to check
Use this checklist to audit your website's technical GEO health. These 25 items cover every technical signal that affects whether AI search engines can access, understand and cite your content.
Video transcript
Twenty-five things decide whether AI can find you. Miss a few, and AI skips you entirely. Here are the three that matter most. First, access. Can AI crawlers even reach your important pages? Second, understanding. Clear structure and schema, so AI knows what you do. Third, trust. The signals that make AI name you. And nobody nails this one. Save the full checklist, free on SearchScore.
Key Takeaway
This 25-point technical review covers crawler access, optional llms.txt housekeeping, structured data, content structure and technical foundations. Passing the checks improves readiness and removes avoidable barriers, but SearchScore has not established that a perfect checklist score causes a higher AI citation rate.
AI crawler access (check these first)
- ☐ OAI-SearchBot access decided - if ChatGPT search visibility matters, confirm yoursite.com/robots.txt does not accidentally block OAI-SearchBot; decide GPTBot training access separately
- ☐ PerplexityBot not blocked - same check for PerplexityBot
- ☐ ClaudeBot not blocked - same check for ClaudeBot
- ☐ No blanket disallow - no User-agent: * / Disallow: / rule blocking all bots
- ☐ Key pages not blocked - your most important content pages are accessible to all crawlers
llms.txt
- ☐ llms.txt decision recorded - if you maintain it, the file is accessible at yoursite.com/llms.txt and is valid Markdown; absence is not treated as a search blocker
- ☐ Accurate description - the one-line description accurately describes your site
- ☐ Key pages listed - your 5 to 10 most important pages are listed with descriptions
- ☐ Topics covered - key topic areas are listed clearly
- ☐ Contact information - contact details or URL included
Schema markup
- ☐ Organisation schema on homepage - with name, URL, logo and sameAs profiles
- ☐ Article schema on all posts - with author, datePublished, dateModified
- ☐ FAQPage schema where applicable - on any page with Q&A content
- ☐ Person schema on author pages - with credentials and professional profiles
- ☐ BreadcrumbList on all pages - reflecting correct site hierarchy
- ☐ Schema validates cleanly - no errors in Schema.org Validator; use Google Rich Results Test only for currently supported result types
- ☐ JSON-LD format used - not microdata or RDFa
Content structure
- ☐ H1 on every page - one H1 per page, accurately describing content
- ☐ Logical heading hierarchy - H1 > H2 > H3, no skipped levels
- ☐ Core answer in first paragraph - key point stated immediately, not buried
- ☐ Alt text on all images - descriptive labels, not empty or keyword-stuffed
Technical foundations
- ☐ HTTPS on entire site - no mixed content warnings
- ☐ Canonical tags on all pages - preventing duplicate content issues
- ☐ XML sitemap submitted - all important pages included and submitted to Search Console
- ☐ Core content not JavaScript-dependent - main content loads in HTML, not only via JS
Faster option: Run a free SearchScore audit to automatically check all 250+ GEO signals across your website - including all the items in this checklist - in under 60 seconds.
Back to pillar
- Technical GEO: How to Optimise Your Website for AI Search →
S
Ronnie Huss
GEO Research & Analysis
The SearchScore editorial team researches and writes about generative engine optimisation, AI search visibility and the signals that determine whether your website gets cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
Sources & Further Reading
- SearchScore – Scoring methodology (250+ signals)
- OpenAI – OpenAI crawlers: OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot and ChatGPT-User
- llmstxt.org – The llms.txt standard specification
- Schema.org – Getting started with structured data
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I run a technical GEO audit?
Run a full technical GEO audit at least quarterly. Also run one after any major website change - redesigns, CMS migrations, robots.txt updates - as these frequently introduce regressions that undo previous GEO work.
What is the most common technical GEO issue?
Blocking AI crawlers in robots.txt is found on roughly 1 in 14 websites (6.9% of 6,944 sites audited interactively by SearchScore, July 2026). It is also the most impactful issue when present - a blocked crawler means zero AI citation regardless of content quality or other optimisations.
Can I automate a GEO technical audit?
Yes. SearchScore runs an automated technical GEO audit covering all six signal categories in seconds. For manual audits, tools like Screaming Frog can check robots.txt rules and find missing schema, while Google Search Console shows crawl errors and coverage issues.
What technical foundations are required for GEO?
The technical foundations are crawl and index eligibility, deliberate access for provider search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot and Claude-SearchBot, clean HTML, accurate structured data, logical headings, HTTPS, canonical tags and an XML sitemap. llms.txt is optional housekeeping. These checks make content usable by retrieval systems; they do not guarantee that an engine will cite it.
How do you do technical GEO?
Work through it in five stages. First, check ordinary indexing and the provider search crawlers that matter to you. Then review optional agent files such as llms.txt, fix inaccurate or invalid schema, tidy heading and answer structure, and confirm fundamentals such as HTTPS, canonicalisation and sitemaps. The checklist separates eligibility from actual answer-engine performance, which must be measured directly.
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