Expert Answer
Technical SEO for AI search includes traditional factors plus new AI-specific requirements. For restaurants and food service businesses:
Essential (traditional + AI):
- HTTPS — Required. AI engines downrank or skip non-secure sites.
- Mobile responsive — Viewport meta tag + responsive design. AI engines check mobile-friendliness.
- Page speed — Under 3 seconds. Slow sites get crawled less frequently.
- XML sitemap — Helps all crawlers (traditional + AI) discover your pages.
- robots.txt — Must allow AI crawlers: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended.
AI-specific technical factors:
- llms.txt — A structured text file at your domain root that tells AI engines about your business, services, and content. Like a robots.txt but for AI context.
- ai.txt — Citation preferences and structured business information for AI systems.
- Schema markup — JSON-LD structured data (Restaurant or FoodEstablishment, FAQPage, etc.) in the `` of every page.
- SpeakableSpecification — CSS selectors pointing to voice-ready content.
- Clean HTML structure — AI crawlers parse HTML differently than browsers; clean, semantic HTML with proper heading hierarchy helps.
- Security headers — HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options signal trustworthy infrastructure.
AI crawler access:
Many restaurants and food service businesses unknowingly block AI crawlers. Check your robots.txt for:
```
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
```
Blocking these crawlers means those AI engines can't access your content at all — guaranteeing you won't be cited.
ClickRadius checks all of these technical factors during its AI readiness audit.