Notes from the answer engine trenches.

What we have learned getting brands cited by AI. No fluff, no recycled listicles. Updated when the engines change.

Latest · Guide

llms.txt, robots.txt and AI Crawlers: What to Allow, What to Block

Which AI bots should reach your site, what llms.txt can and cannot do, and how to block model training without vanishing from AI answers.

robots.txt is the control that matters. Most AI companies run separate crawlers for training and for search, and you can treat them differently.
Blocking training crawlers while allowing search crawlers is a reasonable default for brands that want citations but are wary of model training.
llms.txt is a community proposal, not a standard. Support across engines is uneven, and Google has said it does not use it. It is cheap to publish but should not be your priority.
Check your CDN and firewall too. Many AI bots are blocked there, not in robots.txt.

Playbook · 8 min

AI Overviews sit above the organic results for a growing share of searches. Here is how to structure pages and evidence so Google quotes you.

Guide · 7 min

ChatGPT does not cite pages at random. A practical look at its crawlers, its reliance on search indexes, and what gets a page quoted.

Explainer · 6 min

Three acronyms, one buyer journey. A side-by-side comparison of SEO, AEO and GEO, and a practical way to split your effort between them.

Explainer · 7 min

AEO is the work of making your brand the source AI assistants quote. Here is what it involves, and where it overlaps with SEO.

Free AEO score

Run the free AEO score on your site. You will see which engines can read you, what is missing, and what to fix first.