Key takeaways
- Most causes are basic and fixable: readability, consistency, clarity and outside proof.
- Check whether AI crawlers can actually read your site before anything else.
- Fix the highest-impact items first and re-check the same questions over time.
1. AI crawlers see an empty page
Some page builders send a blank page and fill it in with JavaScript. Browsers show it fine; crawlers that don’t run JavaScript see almost nothing. Quick test: view your page source (not the inspector). If you can’t find your headline and services in it, many AI crawlers can’t either.
2. Your robots.txt blocks AI crawlers
Some sites block AI crawlers by accident through a security plugin or host setting. Check your robots.txt against the crawlers the AI companies document, such as OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot.
3. Your business details don’t match
A different phone number, old address or inconsistent business name across your site, Google Business Profile and directories makes it harder for any system to be confident about you.
4. Your pages don’t say plainly what you do, for whom, and where
Clever taglines don’t help a machine. “Estate planning attorney in Honolulu serving families across Oʻahu” does.
5. No answers to the questions customers ask
AI tools answer questions. Pages that answer “How much does it cost?”, “How long does it take?” and “Who is it for?” in plain language give them something to use.
6. No structured data
Schema.org markup for your organization, services and FAQs tells search engines plainly who you are. It should match what’s visible on the page.
7. Few credible outside mentions
Reviews, local press, professional associations and partner sites act as independent confirmation. A business only described on its own website is harder to trust.
8. Unverifiable claims
Big, unsupported numbers and guarantees can read as marketing noise. Specific, checkable facts, such as credentials, service areas and named people, are more useful.
Where to start
Run the Free AI Visibility Assessment to check causes 1, 4 and 6 in a few minutes. For the full picture, including what AI tools actually say about you and who they name instead, see the AI Visibility Assessment.