While we used to look for information on traditional search engines like Google and Bing, artificial intelligence (AI) platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity have become popular options. They have transformed into AI search engines.
With the rise of AI search engines, simply ranking well on Google SERPs is no longer enough to dominate the online search market. You need to be visible on ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI-powered search platforms, too.
In this AI SEO article, we’ll explore how AI search engines work, the differences between popular AI platforms, and how to optimize your website’s content for quick discovery and indexing by AI crawlers.
Why It’s Important to Rank in AI Search Results
For over 25 years, Google has dominated (and is still dominating)the online search space, but search behavior is evolving. A Statista survey revealed that 13 million U.S. adults used generative AI as their primary search tool in 2023—a number projected to skyrocket to 90 million by 2027.
Why do AI platforms become more popular as search engines? They offer something traditional search engines can’t:
- Contextual search and answers
- Conversational approach
- Precise answers
Unlike traditional search engines, which rely on keyword matching and backlinks, AI search engines focus on understanding user intent and delivering results tailored to what users mean, not just what keywords they use.
This means that as more users shift towards intuitive search experiences, optimizing your website for AI search engine visibility is your ticket to capturing a growing segment of these users and driving more traffic.
The million-dollar question is, however, how you can take advantage of the rise of AI search engines and what AI indexing strategies (e.g., ChatGPT indexing) you should apply to improve your AI search engine visibility.
AI Content Discover: How Do AI Crawlers Work?
Before we discuss some content optimization tips for AI crawlers, it is important to know how AI crawlers discover, read, and process SEO content, as well as some of the biggest AI search engine players and their characteristics.
In essence, AI crawlers build upon the foundational principles of traditional SEO crawling. Like traditional crawlers, they discover and crawl websites. However, their capabilities extend far beyond indexing web pages and their SEO content based on keyword mapping.
AI search engine crawlers use advanced technologies like machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to analyze content deeply, understand its semantic meaning, and its relevance to user queries.
By doing so, instead of indexing the web, AI crawlers use the crawled content to train and update LLMs. This allows AI search engines to generate personalized and accurate search results with conversational tones like we know now.
What’s The Difference Between AI Search Platforms? Let’s Compare
AI platforms are not one-size-fits-all. Each has a distinct way of processing, indexing, and delivering information, influenced by its algorithms and intended use cases. Below are some popular ones.
A. ChatGPT
Since its introduction in 2022, ChatGPT by OpenAI has become synonymous with conversational AI. It effectively simulates natural dialogue and is trained to provide detailed responses to users’ prompts.
Offering different plans, from free to paid, ChatGPT provides a wide range of capabilities from image generation to coding applications, and is one of the most user-friendly models around.
Also, with over 3.7 billion website visits in October 2024, ChatGPT’s dominance in the generative AI space is undeniable.
B. Claude
Developed by Anthropic, Claude AI emphasizes safety, reliability, and context-rich understanding. It mostly works on text-based tasks but also returns fantastic results for coding, infographics, chart creation, and more.
Claude’s strengths lie in its ability to process nuanced questions, handle extended conversations, and prioritize content that aligns with accurate information distribution.
C. Gemini
Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini (previously Bard), combines the precision of traditional search algorithms with the reasoning capabilities of AI. It is trained on Google’s large language models (LLMs): Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) and PaLM 2. As of September 2024, the chatbot received an average of 274.7 million monthly visits.
D. Perplexity
Perplexity positions itself as a research assistant-style tool that gives accessible, conversational, and verifiable answers to any question. It pulls real-time internet data and backs it up with citations from trusted sources.
Unlike other popular AI chatbots, Perplexity leverages multiple LLMs and can pull answers from Claude and ChatGPT, in addition to its proprietary models.
E. You.com
You.com is an AI-powered, ad-free AI search engine that prioritizes user privacy and delivers relevant results using natural language processing (NLP). Its user-friendly interface and customizable experiences offer users more control over their search results.
You.com’s commitment to privacy, control, and relevance makes it a top pick for users who value these attributes.
8 Ways to Optimize Your Website for AI Crawlers
Now, how can you optimize your content to get featured in AI search results—quickly and accurately?
Here are 8 AI indexing strategies to help ensure your website content is effectively discovered and featured in AI search results.
1. Enhance Your Site’s Crawlability
Since AI crawlers work similarly to traditional search engine crawlers, to improve your content’s AI search engine indexation performance, you’ll need to ensure that your content can be accessed and understood easily by the AI bots.
Follow these indexing best practices to get started:
- Ensure your robots.txt file is correctly configured to direct crawlers to your essential pages while blocking irrelevant pages. Here are some dos and don’ts of applying robots.txt files for better SEO.
- Submit an updated, well-structured XML sitemap to ensure that crawlers understand and index your content.
- Fix broken links, long redirect chains (such as 301 redirects), and slow server response times. You can regularly test your site with tools like Google Search Console to identify and fix these issues.
- Use a dynamic rendering solution like Prerender.io to serve ready-to-index versions of your content to search engine bots.
2. Prioritize Natural Language Processing (NLP)
AI search engines use NLP to understand the intent behind user queries and map them to relevant content. To ensure your website’s information is accurately understood and retrieved consider the following:
- Focus on formatting. Structure your content in a way that aligns with common search queries.
- Talk naturally. Incorporate synonyms and everyday phrases that mirror how people naturally speak (and search).
- Prioritize scannability. Break down technical concepts into simple, digestible chunks, such as using examples, analogies, or relatable scenarios to make your content accessible.
3. Pre-render Your Content for Optimized AI Search Results
AI search engines, like traditional search crawlers, often struggle to render JavaScript. And unfortunately, ~97% of websites use JavaScript in some way—most likely yours included.
To address this, install a pre-rendering platform like Prerender.io. Our pre-built rendering solution helps ensure that search engines like Google, as well as LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, can easily find and feature your pages.
For example, one of our customers saw a ~800% increase in referral traffic from ChatGPT after installing Prerender and adding the ChatGPT bot to their account. Learn more about the results in this blog.
- Already a Prerender customer? We recommend adding specific AI user agents to your configuration. For example, include “ChatGPT-user” to ensure ChatGPT crawlers can access and easily learn your JS content. Here’s a list of user agents that Prerender.io supports and instructions for adding additional bots.
4. Leverage Schema Markup and Structured Data
Schema markup is a type of structured data that allows you to provide AI crawlers with additional information about your site’s content. This process improves your site’s visibility and relevance in AI search results.
Here’s how to use schema markup effectively:
- Identify which of your content will benefit from additional information. For instance, the FAQ schema increases your chances of being featured in results on ChatGPT or Gemini.
- Then, use a tool like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to generate the markup code for your content.
- After adding the schema markup to your website, test it using Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to ensure it’s working correctly.
Not familiar with schema markup? Learn 5 types of schema markup and how to implement them here.
5. Optimize for Relevance and Context
AI systems are designed to evaluate and prioritize content for its relevance to search intent. To succeed in content optimization for AI crawlers:
- Know your audience. Tailor your content to address their questions or needs.
- Provide direct, concise, and fact-based responses. That way, these can be used for snippets. Follow this content snippet’s best practices to get started.
- Keep content fresh. Regularly update your articles, blogs, and product pages to reflect the latest trends or data.
- Add links and build trust. For platforms like Perplexity that prioritize transparency, include relevant links to authoritative sources to build trust and boost your site’s visibility.
- Build entities. Cluster related content into topic hubs or silos to help crawlers associate pages on similar themes.
6. Build a Logical Site Structure
A clear and logical site structure ensures crawlers (and users) can efficiently navigate your website and interpret the relationships between different pages. Here are some strategies to achieve a healthy website structure:
- Use a logical arrangement of categories and subcategories, with clear internal linking, to guide crawlers to your important pages.
- Avoid complex menus or drop-downs, and ensure your key pages are accessible within three clicks from the homepage.
- Link key pages in the footer or main navigation to signal importance.
- Maintain a clean URL structure with descriptive, keyword-friendly slugs.
7. Produce High-Quality, AI-Friendly Content
Similar to traditional search engines, AI algorithms prioritize quality over quantity. This means creating informative and in-depth content that goes beyond simply focusing on keywords. You also need to aim for a conversational tone that engages readers and provides valuable information.
Follow these suggestions to maximize your AI content discovery efforts:
- Create content that is rich, informative, and helpful.
- Integrate alt-text for images and videos to ensure visual elements are correctly interpreted by AI crawlers and bots.
- Format your content with appropriate use of headings, subheadings, and bullet points to improve readability.
- Create well-researched and authoritative content. You can include data, statistics, case studies, and customer testimonials to back up your claims.
Related: Discover How To Make Your AI-Generated Content Indexed Faster
8. Optimize Content for Voice Search
Voice search is a rapidly growing trend, with AI assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant leading the charge. Around 6 in 10 consumers use their voice to look up products and services and get answers to common questions.
For AI voice search optimization, you can implement the following tactics:
- Write the way people speak: clear, natural, and conversational.
- Research and incorporate long-tail keywords and questions into your content to match user queries.
- Create an FAQ section to make it easier for AI crawlers to surface your content for relevant voice queries.
- Voice search often pulls from featured snippets, so optimize your content for them.
- Use schema markup to enhance how AI search engines interpret your content.
- Optimize your website for mobile devices, as this is where most voice searches primarily happen. This mobile-friendly SEO guide will tell you how.
Get Your Website Ready for AI Search Results
By implementing these AI indexing strategies, you can ensure your website remains visible, relevant, and discoverable by AI crawlers. With ChatGPT indexing and others leading the change, AI search is set to become even more advanced and integral to our daily lives.
While they may not entirely replace traditional search, they will complement them and enhance search capabilities. However, adapting to this new way of online searching also means ensuring your site is ready for AI search platforms.
Pre-rendering tools like Prerender.io can help optimize your website’s technical SEO quality, allowing it to get recognized by traditional and AI search engines alike. Sign up to Prerender.io for free to AI-proof your website.
Other AI-related content crawling and indexing tips that may interest you:
- How to Easily Optimize Your Website for AI Crawlers
- 6 Reasons Your AI Content Isn’t Being Indexed Faster
- Traditional Search vs. AI-Powered Search Explained
- 10 Ways to Accelerate Web Page Indexing and Its SEO Effects
FAQs
How Can I Ensure My Content Shows Up In AI Search Results?
Here are some tips: improve your crawlability, write and talk naturally, optimize JavaScript rendering with a solution like Prerender.io, leverage proper schema markup, build a logical site structure, optimize for relevance, produce high-quality content, optimize content for voice search, and more.
How Can Prerender.io Help My Pages Get Featured in AI Search Results?
AI crawlers struggle to render JavaScript—and most (~97%) websites use JavaScript in some way. If AI crawlers can’t find and read your content, it’s simple: your site won’t be featured in their results. Prerender.io helps optimize your content for AI crawlers so that they can feature you. Learn more.
