A storefront that search engines and AI assistants understand

SEO, AEO and GEO: three readers of one page

SEO is search engine optimisation: the page has to get into Google and Yandex results and hold a place there. AEO (answer engine optimisation) is about direct answers: answer boxes in search, voice assistants and question-and-answer sections, where a short precise answer is needed rather than a link. GEO (generative engine optimisation) is visibility in the answers of generative assistants: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI modes, which read a page and retell it with a reference to the source.

All three need the same things: content served by the server rather than drawn by scripts, a clear title and description, data marked up with schema.org, and short answers to common questions. Google states that AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special markup: the usual practices work - crawlability, quality text and accurate structured data.

What the storefront serves to a robot

• Ready HTML. The name, description, price list, photos and contacts are in the page code before any script runs: the robot sees what a person sees and does not wait for the app to load.
• Page title and description. The title is built from the company name and the enabled sections, for example "Cosmo - online booking, shop"; the business card, booking, shop, every product and every bundle have their own title and description.
• Schema.org structured data. The company is marked up as LocalBusiness: address, coordinates (the address is geocoded automatically), phone, social links, photos and a catalogue of services with prices. Products and bundles are Product with price and availability, the business card's questions and answers are FAQPage, the path through sections is BreadcrumbList.
• Link card. For Telegram, WhatsApp, VK, LinkedIn and other messengers and social networks the storefront serves Open Graph: a preview with the avatar, cover and name, so a link in a chat looks like a card rather than a bare address.
• One address per page. The default view is merged with the storefront root through canonical, each of the nine languages has its own address with hreflang, service pages (documents, installation) are excluded from the index: no duplicates and no clutter in results.
• The favicon and the app icon are open to robots: the mark next to the name shows up both in search and in previews.

AI assistants are invited explicitly

The site's robots.txt lists AI crawlers as separate groups with the same policy as for everyone: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User from OpenAI, ClaudeBot, Claude-User and Claude-SearchBot from Anthropic, PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot and meta-externalagent. Under the robots rules a bot that finds its own group ignores the general one, so the invitation is made explicitly for each.

When a customer asks an assistant about a specialist by link - "what do they do here and how much is a haircut" - the page is opened by a user agent: ChatGPT-User from OpenAI, Claude-User from Anthropic or Perplexity-User. It reads the same HTML and the same markup as a search engine and answers from the storefront data: services, prices, address, phone.

How to turn on search indexing

Crawling storefronts is not blocked in robots.txt: a robot can always fetch a page and see its settings. Whether the storefront gets into the search index and the sitemap is your call: "Settings" has a "Search visibility" section with a step-by-step list of what is worth filling in and an "Index the storefront in search" switch. While the switch is off, the storefront is served with noindex so that empty and test pages do not end up in results; AI assistants and messenger previews read it anyway.

One selected language version of the storefront is indexed, the others stay closed, so one storefront does not turn into nine duplicates. Indexing is part of the Plus plan. If the subscription expires, indexing pauses by itself and your choice is kept: after renewal it turns back on without you.

1. 1Open "Settings" and the "Search visibility" tile. The steps show what is already filled in and what is not: name and description, address on the map, phone and social links, avatar and photos, services or products, questions and answers.
2. 2Fill in what is missing right from the steps: the buttons open the needed dialogs and sections. An address counts as found when it has coordinates and is shown on the map.
3. 3In the last step turn on "Index the storefront in search" and choose the storefront language for search. After that the storefront gets index, follow and a line in the sitemap.
4. 4Check the result with the links in the same step: "Open storefront" and "Check markup in Google". Search engines come on their own within a few days; you can speed it up through Google Search Console and Yandex Webmaster.

How to get the most out of it

The same steps are collected in the "Search visibility" section in "Settings": it shows what is already filled in and leads to what is missing.

1. 1Fill in the company description and the services with prices: they go into the service catalogue in the markup and into assistants' answers to "how much does it cost".
2. 2Add the address, phone and social links in the company settings: the address gets coordinates automatically, and the phone and social links go into the LocalBusiness card.
3. 3Upload the avatar and storefront photos: they become the link preview, the favicon and the images in the markup.
4. 4Fill in the business card's "Questions and answers" section: these are the pairs assistants and answer boxes take for direct answers, and in the markup they are served as FAQPage.
5. 5Use the same storefront link everywhere: in social profiles, on business cards and in the QR code. A custom domain, if you have one, works too - the storefront serves the same markup on it.