--- title: "AI search and SEO · Polargate" description: "Technical SEO and generative engine optimisation on one job: server-rendered content, correct crawler access, schema.org, hreflang and Core Web Vitals…" url: https://polargate.ai/services/grow/ai-search-and-seo locale: en publisher: POLARGATE S.L. --- Grow // Findable in Google, quotable in ChatGPT. # AI search and SEO Technical SEO and generative engine optimisation on one job: server-rendered content, correct crawler access, schema.org, hreflang and Core Web Vitals, plus honest measurement of citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews. It starts with an AI visibility audit from 1,500 EUR, credited against the work if contracted within 60 days. In short Polargate is a senior-led studio that makes websites findable in Google and quotable in ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews. We server-render the pages that matter, open the right crawlers at robots.txt and firewall level, fix hreflang, schema.org and Core Web Vitals, then measure real citations in server logs and Bing. It starts with an AI visibility audit from 1,500 EUR, credited against the work if contracted within 60 days. ## What it is Search has two front doors now. One is Google, where a page still has to be crawlable, fast and correctly marked up. The other is an assistant: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot or Google's AI Overviews, which read a handful of pages and answer on your behalf. Polargate treats both as one job. Technical SEO is the floor, generative engine optimisation is the layer above it, and they share one requirement: the answer has to sit in the HTML the crawler receives, in plain language, before any JavaScript runs. That is where most sites fail. GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot fetch raw HTML and do not execute JavaScript, so a client-rendered React site shows them an empty shell. ChatGPT in its fastest mode sees little more than the title, the H1 and the first couple of hundred characters. Bot protection at the edge can quietly serve those fetchers a challenge they cannot solve, and your analytics will never show it, because bots do not run the tracking script either. ## How we do it We start with an audit, not a proposal. We fetch every important URL the way a crawler does, with JavaScript off, and count the characters that are actually readable. We read robots.txt group by group, check the Vercel or Cloudflare rules in front of the site, verify hreflang return tags and canonicals, look at Core Web Vitals field data rather than lab scores, and check whether you exist in Bing at all, since ChatGPT and Copilot lean on that index. What a visitor reads, and what an AI crawler receives A JavaScript site serves a full page to a browser that runs its code, and an almost empty shell to the AI crawlers that do not run it. A pre-rendered site serves the same complete HTML to both. Characters of body text from one real news page, before and after. An assistant recommends what it could read, so the second number is the one that decides whether you are in the answer. Then we fix things in the order that changes outcomes. Server-rendered pages first, so the content exists without JavaScript. Answer-first structure next: one H1, headings phrased as the questions buyers actually ask, a direct forty to seventy word answer under each. One schema.org entity graph, built from a single source of truth and serialised into the HTML, never injected at runtime. We are honest about the limits: a 2026 study of 1,885 marked-up pages against 4,000 controls found no measurable citation uplift from schema alone, and no engine has shown a citation lift from llms.txt. We ship both because they cost little and keep the site consistent, not because they are a lever. ## What you get A prioritised findings list with the evidence behind each item, the implemented fixes, and tests in your build that fail when a page loses its H1, its hreflang or its structured data. On Hotel Talavera that approach surfaced 48 confirmed findings and 16 real bugs, including a robots.txt inheritance error and English pages served with lang="es". On Malacca Tables the crawler-readable content went from zero characters to 105,212 across 65 URLs. You also get measurement that survives the fact that AI bots are invisible to client-side analytics: server-log tracking by user agent, Bing's AI Performance report, an AI referrer group in GA4, and a fixed set of buyer prompts we re-run every month. ## What it costs The AI visibility audit starts at 1,500 EUR and is credited in full against the implementation work that follows if contracted within 60 days. Implementation is quoted as a fixed-price block once we know what the site actually needs. Ongoing work runs on a monthly retainer under our CARE line. What you get - Crawler-truth audit: every key URL fetched with JavaScript disabled, readable characters counted page by page - robots.txt rebuilt with explicit groups for search and answer bots, and a deliberate, separate decision on training crawlers - Edge check on Vercel or Cloudflare so bot protection is not silently serving AI fetchers a challenge - Server-rendered, answer-first pages: one H1, question headings, a direct answer under each - One schema.org entity graph (Organization, WebSite, Service, Article, BreadcrumbList) written into the built HTML, never injected at runtime - hreflang with return tags and x-default across every language, mirrored in the sitemap and its lastmod dates - Core Web Vitals work driven by field data (LCP, INP, CLS), not lab scores - Measurement stack: Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow, AI user agents in server logs, an AI referrer group in GA4, and a fixed monthly prompt panel Engagement Timeline Audit delivered in about two weeks. The first implementation block usually runs three to six weeks, depending on whether the site already renders on the server. Citation measurement starts in month one and reports monthly. Team Two people, and neither of them sells. Pedro Ciordia, founder and CTO of Polargate, runs the audit and the technical implementation; Andrés Ciordia, Chief AI Officer, leads the AI side. Specialists from our network join for content, translation or paid media when a project needs them. Price From 1,500 EUR for the AI visibility audit, credited in full against the implementation that follows if contracted within 60 days. Implementation is quoted as a fixed-price block; ongoing work runs on a monthly retainer. Stack - Vite - React - TypeScript - Vercel - Supabase - Search Console - GA4 - GitHub Actions - Vitest - Playwright - Cloudflare - WordPress ## Proof Malacca Tables ### A homeware shop rebuilt so AI search can read the catalogue A premium tableware and home linen brand in Madrid moved off WordPress and WooCommerce onto a custom store. Polargate migrated 24 products and 93 variants without admin access, and turned 65 pages that served AI crawlers nothing into pages that carry the full catalogue in plain HTML. 2026 Read the case [A homeware shop rebuilt so AI search can read the catalogue](https://polargate.ai/work/malacca-tables) Hotel Talavera ### A bilingual hotel website that crawlers and AI assistants can read A 4-star city hotel in Castilla-La Mancha had a website that search engines received as an empty container. Polargate rebuilt it as 16 pre-rendered bilingual URLs and now runs it on a monthly Care retainer with a recurring audit loop. 2026 Read the case [A bilingual hotel website that crawlers and AI assistants can read](https://polargate.ai/work/hotel-talavera) FAQ ## Questions, answered How much does an AI visibility and SEO audit cost? Polargate's AI visibility audit starts at 1,500 EUR as a fixed price, and the full amount is credited against the implementation work if you go ahead within 60 days. It covers the HTML crawlers actually receive, robots.txt, edge and firewall rules, hreflang, structured data, Core Web Vitals field data and your presence in Bing. Implementation is quoted separately as a fixed-price block once we know what the site needs. How long does it take to show up in ChatGPT or AI Overviews? The technical fixes land in days. Once pages are server-rendered and the fetchers are allowed through, GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot can read your site on their next visit. Citations run on a slower clock, driven by authority, freshness and third-party mentions, so we measure monthly and look for movement across a quarter. Nobody can guarantee a citation or a ranking, and we do not. Does llms.txt help my site get cited by AI? Not on its own. Consumer crawlers do not request llms.txt, Google Search ignores it, and no study shows a citation lift from it. It is genuinely useful for coding and agent tools that read it deliberately. We generate it from the built HTML because it costs almost nothing and stays accurate, but the work that moves citations is server-rendered, answer-first content. Will schema.org markup get me into AI Overviews? Structured data helps machines read your page correctly, but it is not the lever people think it is. A 2026 study of 1,885 marked-up pages against 4,000 controls found no measurable citation uplift from schema alone. Visible text does the work. We write one accurate entity graph into the served HTML, mark up only facts a visitor can see, and skip the schema types Google retired. Can you do this on WordPress, or only on custom builds? Both. Malacca Tables ran on WordPress and WooCommerce before we rebuilt it, and Hotel Talavera is a Vite and React site pre-rendered with vite-react-ssg. The audit is platform-neutral because it only looks at what the crawler receives. On WordPress we fix rendering, robots, structured data and speed in place. If the platform itself is the blocker, we say so and price a rebuild separately. How do you measure whether AI assistants are citing my site? With server-side data, because AI bots do not run JavaScript and never appear in GA4 or Plausible. We track requests by user agent in your server logs, use Bing Webmaster Tools and its AI Performance report, add an AI referrer group in GA4 for the humans who arrive from chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai, and re-run a fixed panel of buyer prompts every month. INITIATE ## Start the engine Tell us what you are building in a few short questions. A senior engineer answers in writing within 48 business hours, with a first take on scope, timeline and price. [Start your project](https://polargate.ai/start) · [Talk to us](https://polargate.ai/start#static-brief-heading)