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GEO Compliance Guide

This document defines the full set of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) requirements that must be implemented and validated before release.
It acts as the single source of truth for GEO configuration, development, content preparation, and automated CI validation.

Use this document in:

  • PR templates
  • CI validation workflows
  • Starter Kit documentation
  • Development onboarding

1. Purpose

The goal of GEO Compliance is to ensure that websites and content are fully optimized for:

  • AI crawlers
  • LLM-based search engines
  • Semantic understanding
  • Rich results and structured responses

A GEO‑compliant setup ensures your content can be discovered, interpreted, and used by answer engines and AI models.

2. GEO Requirements Overview

Below is a complete list of GEO tasks and requirements implemented in the project.

2.1 Technical & Platform Requirements

  • AI crawler access configured via robots.txt and hosting
  • .well-known/ai.txt endpoint added for AI crawler permissions
  • Standard XML sitemap generated (/sitemap.xml) for traditional crawlers
  • LLM‑optimized sitemap created (/sitemap-llm.xml)
  • Semantic HTML structure used throughout
  • Schema.org markup implemented and validated
  • Canonical metadata implemented and optimized
  • OpenGraph and metadata support enabled
  • Metadata optimization across key pages
  • Chunk‑level content architecture implemented
  • GraphQL queries updated to fetch chunk content
  • Sitemap LLM integrated using SitecoreClient
  • GEO testing scripts added to CI (where applicable)

2.2 GEO Content Deliverables

The following files must exist at site root or specified endpoints:

File Purpose
/ai/summary.json Concise site summary for answer engines
/ai/faq.json Structured Q&A for LLMs
/ai/service.json Site capabilities, offerings, features
sitemap-llm.xml LLM-optimized structured sitemap

Note: Coverage varies by starter. See AI_ENDPOINTS.md for which starters implement each endpoint. All files must match the required schema format and validation rules listed in Section 4.

2.3 Documentation Requirements

  • GEO documentation (this guide) available and linked from repo README
  • GEO readiness checklist completed
  • Bot / AI crawler access documentation prepared

3. GEO Validation & Thresholds

Below are the validation rules, tools, and minimum thresholds required for GEO compliance.

3.1 Semantic HTML + Schema Markup

  • Validation Tool:
    • Google Rich Results Test (Google Search Console) — validates structured data and schema markup
    • PageSpeed Insights (https://pagespeed.web.dev/analysis/) — checks semantic HTML usage, metadata quality, and structured data performance signals
  • Threshold:
    • No schema errors (warnings allowed depending on context)
    • Required schema types present on key pages
    • Semantic HTML elements correctly used for headings, sections, navigation, and content structure

3.2 Metadata Requirements

  • Validation Tool:
    • Meta Sharing Debugger (Meta for Developers) — validates OpenGraph fields, detects missing metadata, and shows how content appears when shared
    • Twitter Card Validator (https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator) — validates Twitter Card metadata and previews how links render on X/Twitter
  • Threshold:
    • All required OpenGraph fields present
    • Canonical tag present
    • Title + description meet minimum length rules

3.3 GEO JSON Validation

  • Validation Tool: GEO JSON schema validator
  • Thresholds:
    • /ai/summary.json must include mandatory fields
    • /ai/faq.json must include minimum 3 FAQ item
    • /ai/service.json must include required service descriptors
    • No broken JSON, missing fields or invalid structure

3.4 LLM Sitemap

  • Validation Tool:
  • Threshold:
    • Valid XML
    • All required <url> fields defined
    • Schema matches LLM sitemap spec
    • Must follow the LLM sitemap specification, meaning:
      • Only the most content-rich, authoritative, meaningful pages are included
      • Content should be stable, canonical, and intended for LLM ingestion

3.5 AI Crawler Access

  • Validation Tool:
  • Threshold:
    • robots.txt must be valid (no syntax errors, no malformed directives)
    • Required /ai/* endpoints not blocked
    • .well-known/ai.txt discoverable

3.6 Chunk‑Based Content

  • Threshold:
    • Chunk title + metadata present
    • Content within recommended size limits
    • No empty chunks

4. GEO Compliance Checklist (PR‑ready)

Copy this block into PR templates or CI reporting.

###  GEO Compliance Checklist

#### Technical Requirements
- [ ] Semantic HTML structure implemented
- [ ] Schema.org markup validated (no errors)
- [ ] Canonical metadata present and correct
- [ ] OpenGraph metadata present and complete
- [ ] Robots.txt configured for AI crawler access
- [ ] `.well-known/ai.txt` implemented

#### GEO JSON Files
- [ ] `/ai/summary.json` exists and passes schema validation
- [ ] `/ai/faq.json` exists with at least one Q&A
- [ ] `/ai/service.json` exists with full service descriptions

#### LLM Sitemap
- [ ] `/sitemap-llm.xml` generated and valid
- [ ] All required fields included

#### Content Architecture
- [ ] Chunk-level content structure implemented
- [ ] Chunk metadata and length validated

#### Testing & Validation
- [ ] GEO automated tests pass (run `npm run dev`, then `npm run test:geo` in starter directory)
- [ ] GEO Readiness Checklist completed
- [ ] GEO compliant (see this guide, Sections 2–4)

5. GEO Testing Scripts and Documentation

Use the following links to access related GEO assets, validation scripts, and author guidance.

Resource Description Link
GEO Compliance Checklist PR-ready checklist (copy into PR templates or CI reporting) Section 4 above in this document
GEO endpoints and ai.json Implementation details for /.well-known/ai.txt, /ai/summary.json, /ai/faq.json, /ai/service.json, /sitemap-llm.xml AI_ENDPOINTS.md
AI crawler setup Crawler configuration, hosting provider setup, and how to allow or restrict AI crawlers AI_CRAWLER_ACCESS.md
GEO automated tests Automated tests validate GEO endpoints: /.well-known/ai.txt, /ai/summary.json, /ai/faq.json, /ai/service.json, /sitemap-llm.xml, /robots.txt, /sitemap.xml. Before running the tests: start the site with npm run dev in the starter directory, then in another terminal run npm run test:geo or npm run test:geo:watch (from examples/<starter>). Start site: npm run dev. Then run: npm run test:geo or npm run test:geo:watch (from examples/<starter>)
GEO compliant (checklist item) For the “GEO compliant” item in Section 4: use this document (requirements, validation thresholds, and checklist) as the GEO rules reference. This document (Sections 2–4)