Technical SEO Checklist for AI and Traditional Search
Check your site’s indexing status in GSC and BWT, verify robots.txt, fix redirect chains, broken links, and 5xx errors, and audit Core Web Vitals (LCP <2.5s, INP <200ms, CLS <0.1) to satisfy both Google and AI retrieval bots.
Patch any indexing exclusions, redirect issues, broken links, server errors, and Core Web Vitals violations to ensure visibility in both search and AI surfaces.
Summary
Technical SEO now serves two search systems: Google’s crawler and AI agents that pull content from the web. The checklist covers core requirements such as ensuring pages are indexed in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, fixing robots.txt exclusions, and preventing noindex tags on important pages. It also stresses the importance of a single preferred URL, 301 redirects, and the removal of redirect chains and loops identified by tools like Semrush Site Audit. Server errors (5xx) and broken internal or external links must be resolved to preserve authority and user experience. Core Web Vitals thresholds—LCP under 2.5 s, INP below 200 ms, and CLS under 0.1—are highlighted as critical for both search engines and AI retrieval bots. Finally, the guide recommends enabling IndexNow to accelerate Bing indexing and auditing robots.txt to allow AI bots separate from traditional crawlers.
The article emphasizes that a technical issue once harming rankings can now make a site invisible across both search and AI surfaces, making these foundations essential for any SEO or AI strategy.
Key changes
- Use GSC Pages report to identify indexed vs excluded pages
- Implement 301 redirects to a single preferred URL version
- Configure robots.txt to allow AI retrieval bots
- Fix redirect chains and loops identified by Semrush Site Audit
- Resolve broken internal and external links
- Address server 5xx errors
- Audit Core Web Vitals thresholds LCP 2.5s, INP 200ms, CLS 0.1
- Enable IndexNow to submit URLs to Bing