A monthly AI search checklist for stores

The setup work in this series does not stay done. A theme update, a new app or a change at your CDN can quietly undo a step you finished last month. This AI search optimization checklist is the routine that catches it: seven checks, one for each earlier step, each with what to recheck, why it drifts, the tool to use and a “Done when” line. It works on any platform.

What goes into website maintenance?

For AI search, maintenance is seven checks, one per setup step: crawler access, llms.txt, product markup, policies, product answers, program feeds and a fresh measurement. We estimate the first six take a small store about an hour a month. Each ends with a clear “Done when” line.

Each check exists because something changes underneath it:

• Theme and app updates. Shopify says code edits that conflict with a theme update are not carried over, and asks you to save a copy of customized code before updating.
• New products. A product added this month has no answers, may be missing from a feed and may sit on a template you never tested.
• Policy changes. A new return window has to change on your policy page, in Merchant Center and in every feed at once.
• Platform and network changes. In July 2025 Cloudflare began asking every new domain whether to allow AI crawlers. Google says crawling must be allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting setup.

Here is the whole routine. Step through it once a month:

The times are our rough estimates for a store with a few dozen products, done by hand: five to ten minutes for each of checks 1 to 4, and about half an hour for checks 5 and 6 together. Check 7 takes as long as your measurement in step 7. A large catalog changes checks 5 and 6 most.

How do you do an SEO audit?

For AI search, the monthly audit starts with four technical checks: can the crawlers reach your pages, is your llms.txt current, does your product markup match the page, and do your policies say the same thing everywhere. A free tool covers each one in a few minutes.

Check 1: AI crawlers

Recheck: your robots.txt rules for the search crawlers, and any bot settings at your CDN or firewall.

Why it drifts: a theme, an app, a security setting or a host change can add a block. OpenAI says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, and its systems can take about 24 hours to react to a robots.txt change. Perplexity says changes for its crawlers can take up to 24 hours too. Network settings matter as much as the file: Cloudflare’s docs describe separate Search, Training and Agent settings, with new defaults for new domains from September 15, 2026.

Tool: the checker below reads your robots.txt and shows, crawler by crawler, whether your key pages are allowed. For Googlebot, Search Console’s URL Inspection live test shows whether Google can fetch a page today.

Done when: OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Googlebot are allowed on your product and collection pages, no robots.txt rule blocks Storebot-Google (the checker does not test it, so look for its name in the file), and your CDN’s bot settings allow the search crawlers you want. Google’s crawler list explains each Google agent. Background: AI crawlers.

Check 2: llms.txt

Recheck: that yoursite.com/llms.txt loads and that its links still work.

Why it drifts: collections get renamed, policy pages move and old links break. Shopify serves a managed file and says /llms.txt mirrors /agents.md by default, but once you add your own template you take responsibility for keeping it current.

Tool: our llms.txt checker checks the file you have, or writes one for any platform. Keep the effort small: Google says its Search ignores llms.txt files.

Done when: the file loads, names your store and links only to collections, policies and help pages that exist today, or you have chosen to keep your platform’s default. Background: does llms.txt work?

Check 3: Product structured data

Recheck: one product page from each template, and Search Console’s Shopping reports.

Why it drifts: theme updates, apps that add reviews or variants, and new templates all change your markup. Search Console’s rich result reports chart your valid and invalid items over time, so a jump after a theme update or a new template shows up there. Price and availability can change daily, and the markup has to change with them.

Tool: the checker below, or Google’s Rich Results Test. In Search Console, the merchant listings and product snippets reports sit under Shopping and show a sample of items across your site.

Done when: each product template shows one valid Product or ProductGroup with no new errors, and the price, currency and availability in the markup match the page. Background: product structured data.

Check 4: Store policies

Recheck: your return window, return cost, refund timing and shipping terms in every place they appear.

Why it drifts: policies change by season and by decision, and each copy changes separately. Google asks merchants to confirm their return policies are consistent in Merchant Center and across the website, including the footer, returns page and banners. Google also says return settings in Merchant Center or Search Console take precedence over the return policy in your markup. OpenAI’s feed spec carries its own return fields, such as the number of days allowed for returns.

Tool: our return policy tool checks the policy you have, or drafts a new one. Then compare the numbers across Merchant Center and your feeds. Google says policy changes can take up to 30 days to show in its Store Quality ratings.

Done when: every return and shipping term has one value, and that value is the same on your policy pages, in Merchant Center, in your feeds and in your markup. Background: store policies.

How often does a website need to be updated?

There is no fixed schedule. Update a fact on the day it changes, on the page, in the feed and in the markup together, and review everything once a month. Google warns against changing page dates to look fresh, so update only when something real changed.

Google’s helpful content guidance asks site owners whether they are changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh without real changes. On adding or removing content to look fresh, it says it won’t help. The last three checks are about real changes: your page answers, your feeds and how often assistants name you.

Check 5: Product answers

Recheck: the answers on your best-selling product pages, and whether new products have any.

Why it drifts: a new size, material or supplier makes an old answer wrong, and new products start with none.

Tool: your own sources, as in step 5: support emails, reviews, site search and the questions you asked assistants last month. Our product FAQ generator lists common shopper questions and shows which ones your page answers.

Done when: every answer on your top products is still true, every product added this month answers its most common questions, and any question that reached support twice is now on the page.

Check 6: Program feeds and statuses

Recheck: the status screens of each program you joined in step 6.

Why it drifts: feeds expire, products get disapproved and eligibility rules change. Google says products expire from Merchant Center 30 days after the last refresh, unless they were added directly in Merchant Center. Google compares your feed price with the landing page, and a mismatched price can get the product disapproved. OpenAI recommends sending a full feed snapshot at least daily, with prices and availability updated when they change. Shopify says a store can lose eligibility for Shopify Catalog if it no longer meets the requirements.

Where to look:

• Google Merchant Center. Products, then the Needs attention tab, plus any account banner.
• Shopify. Sales channels, then Agentic. The product count beside Shopify Catalog, or an Ineligible warning you can click for the reason.
• Microsoft Merchant Center. In Microsoft Advertising, Tools, then Merchant Center, then Feeds. Microsoft says new or updated feeds can take up to about 72 hours to show as eligible offers.
• Amazon. If you sell there, Seller Central’s Search Suppressed and Inactive Listings tab under Manage All Inventory.

Done when: no product you want to sell is disapproved, ineligible or expired, your product counts match your catalog, and every feed has refreshed on schedule.

Check 7: Re-measure

Recheck: how often the assistants name you, using the same questions and method as your baseline.

Why it drifts: assistants change, competitors change and your fixes start to show, or do not. Answers also vary from run to run, so one month’s number means little without its range and its number of answers.

Tool: the manual method in step 7. For Google, Search Console’s Generative AI performance report shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, and Google says it rolled out to all websites as of August 31, 2026.

Done when: this month’s results, with the number of answers, sit in the same log as your baseline, and you have noted which pages you changed since the last run.

You can run all seven checks by hand for a few products. Past that, checks 5 and 7 become the long ones, because they repeat for every product and every question. We built SourceVision to take on those two: we ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity your shoppers’ questions many times over and report how often you appear, with the range across runs. Then we propose the answers each product page is missing, drafted only from facts you confirm, and nothing is applied to your store without your approval. SourceVision is in an invite-only beta.

Request an invite

What goes on an SEO migration checklist?

After a theme change, a platform migration or a big catalog update, run the affected checks the same day instead of waiting a month. Redirect every old URL permanently, retest crawler access and markup, resubmit feeds with the new links, and start a fresh measurement baseline.

After a theme change:

• Run checks 1 to 3 the same day.
• On Shopify, check robots.txt again. Shopify says uploading a theme in the admin won’t import a custom robots.txt.liquid file.
• Test one product page per template, including a product with variants.

After a platform migration:

• Redirect every old product, collection and policy URL with a permanent redirect. Google recommends 301 or 308 redirects and says to keep them at least 1 year.
• Test a sample of old URLs with URL Inspection. If the domain changed, submit a Change of Address in Search Console.
• Run the crawler check on the new host and look at its CDN and firewall bot settings.
• Recheck your llms.txt, markup and policy pages on the new platform.
• Resubmit every feed with the new product URLs.
• Measure again and treat the result as a new baseline.

After a big catalog update:

• Check 6 first: new products in Merchant Center, Shopify Catalog counts and any feed errors.
• Shopify Catalog takes a product only when it has a title, at least one image and a price above zero, is published with a product URL and is not Unlisted. Unlisted products are hidden from AI channels and from search engines.
• Run check 3 on any new template, then check 5 on the new products, starting with the ones you expect to sell most.

What are some SEO best practices?

For AI search, the best practices are the eight steps of this series: let the crawlers in, keep llms.txt accurate, mark up products correctly, make policies readable, answer shoppers’ questions, join the programs you qualify for, measure honestly, and repeat the checks every month.

None of them is a trick. Google says that, from its point of view, optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO, and that a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet to appear in its AI features. The work is plain: open access, accurate facts, the same facts everywhere and a measurement you can trust.

This is the last step. To see the whole job on one page, go back to the 8-step guide. If you are starting fresh, or after a migration, begin again with step 1 and work forward. Next month, open this checklist again.