A publisher’s guide to Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Applebot, Amazonbot and other documented crawlers—what each one does, which controls it respects, and how to prepare a website for AI search without confusing crawling with citation.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the work of making content eligible, clear, verifiable, and measurable across systems that generate direct answers. This guide separates durable practices from citation and schema myths.
No page can force an AI citation. This guide shows how to meet ordinary eligibility requirements, build evidence passages that travel, and measure retrieval without ranking promises.
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