Key points
- Start with access: if Googlebot, Bingbot or OAI-SearchBot can't reach your pages, nothing else matters.
- Publish the specific facts customers ask about as text on your own pages: services, prices, areas, people, hours.
- Keep your Google Business Profile complete, accurate and consistent with your website.
- Ask every customer for a review in the same way, with no incentives. That's Google's policy and, since 6 April 2025, UK law.
- Measure with a fixed question set before and after, so you know whether the checks made a difference.
These 20 checks apply to almost any UK business whose customers ask AI who to choose: a law firm, a physio, an electrician, a restaurant or a software company. Each one has a reason, linked to official guidance or our own testing, and a way to check it yourself in a few minutes.
Work through them in order. The early checks are about whether AI tools can reach your site at all; the later ones are about what they find when they do.
Access: can AI search tools reach your site?
Your pages are indexed in Google
Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
How to check: Verify your site in Google Search Console and use the URL Inspection tool on your main pages.
robots.txt allows Googlebot, Bingbot and OAI-SearchBot
OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Googlebot rules control crawling for Google Search.
How to check: Open yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt and look for Disallow lines that apply to these user agents or to all user agents.
Your hosting or CDN isn't blocking crawlers
Google tells site owners to check that their CDN or hosting infrastructure allows crawling. Bot protection settings sometimes block legitimate crawlers.
How to check: Check Search Console's crawl stats and ask your host whether bot protection is on and what it blocks.
Your site is verified in Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing's AI Performance report shows how often your pages are cited in Copilot and AI summaries in Bing, and Bing supports IndexNow for telling it about changed pages.
How to check: Add your site at bing.com/webmasters (you can import it from Search Console) and submit your sitemap.
Website: is the information there, as text?
One page per main service
Detailed questions need detailed pages. A single services list gives AI little to match against a specific request.
How to check: List the 5 services you most want customers for. Each should have its own page with its own heading.
Prices as text on a web page
Prices in PDFs and images are easy to misread. AI may skip them or quote them wrongly.
How to check: Search your site for your main prices. If they only appear in a PDF or image, add them to a page as text, with the date checked.
Areas you serve are listed by name
Customers ask by town. 'We cover the South East' matches fewer questions than a list of the towns you work in.
How to check: Check your contact or areas page for a plain list of towns and postcodes you serve.
A team page with names and credentials
Named people with roles, qualifications and registration numbers give AI specific, checkable facts, and many regulators require them.
How to check: Compare your team page with your regulator's requirements, such as the GDC for dentists or the SRA for solicitors.
Common questions answered plainly
The questions customers ask before buying, such as cost, waiting times, what's included or what happens first, are the ones AI is asked too.
How to check: Take the 10 questions you're asked most and check each has a clear written answer on your site.
Opening hours and availability stated
Hours, same-day or emergency availability and typical lead times answer 'how soon' questions directly.
How to check: Check your hours on your site match your Google profile exactly, including bank holidays.
Structured data that matches the page
Google recommends structured data that matches visible text. LocalBusiness or Organization markup states your name, address, phone and hours in a consistent format. It's helpful and it isn't required for AI features.
How to check: Test your homepage and contact page with Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator.
Google Business Profile: is it complete and accurate?
Your profile is claimed and verified
Google says verified businesses are more likely to show in local results. AI answers about local businesses often draw on the same profile information.
How to check: Search for your business on Google Maps and check the profile shows as managed by you.
The name matches your real-world name
Google's guidelines say the name should reflect the business's real-world name, without extra keywords or locations.
How to check: Compare your profile name with your signage, website and stationery.
Categories are few and accurate
Google asks businesses to use as few categories as possible to describe their core business, and not to use categories as keywords.
How to check: Check your primary category matches what you mainly do.
Services and hours are filled in
Google says complete, accurate information helps it match your profile to searches. Holiday hours count too.
How to check: Fill in services with descriptions and prices where you can, and set special hours for bank holidays.
Reviews: are they fair and current?
Every customer is asked in the same way
Google's policy bans selectively soliciting positive reviews. The DMCC Act 2024 has banned fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews in the UK since 6 April 2025.
How to check: Write down your review request process. If staff choose who to ask, change it so everyone is asked.
No incentives for reviews
Google's policy bans offering payment, discounts, free goods or services in exchange for reviews.
How to check: Check any 'review us for a discount' offers on your site, receipts or emails, and remove them.
Consistency and measurement
Name, address and phone match everywhere
When your website, Google profile and directories disagree, AI answers can repeat the wrong one. In our test, one practice appeared twice under two names.
How to check: Search for your phone number and your old addresses or trading names. Correct every listing that's out of date.
The directories AI cites in your sector are accurate
Each sector has its own sources: the NHS website for dentists, Checkatrade for trades, portals for estate agents, review platforms for B2B.
How to check: Ask AI tools your customers' questions and note which third-party sites are cited. Check your listing on each.
You measure with a fixed question set
Answers vary from day to day. A fixed set of questions, asked more than once in the tools your customers use, logged out, shows whether anything changes.
How to check: Follow our guide to measuring AI search visibility and repeat it monthly.
After the checklist
Most fixes are small: a new page, a corrected listing, a changed review request. None of them guarantees that an AI tool will name you, and each one removes a common reason for being left out or described wrongly.
To see whether the changes made a difference, measure before and after using the method in our measurement guide. For more on profiles, read Google Business Profile and AI search.
If you'd like us to run the checklist for you, it's part of the AI visibility audit. If your site fails most of the website checks, a website rebuild covers them.
Sources
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Google Search Central: Local business structured data
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
- Microsoft Bing Webmaster blog: AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools (10 February 2026)
- IndexNow: frequently asked questions
- Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google
- Google Business Profile Help: How to improve your local ranking on Google
- Google Maps user contributed content policy: prohibited and restricted content
- CMA: Fake reviews guidance (CMA208)
All sources checked on 12 October 2026. Platform documentation changes often; if something here is out of date, tell us at hello@inplaincite.com.