Agent-First SEO Specification

Agent-First SEO defines how to make digital content discoverable, readable, and actionable by AI agents (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others). This page is the canonical specification for implementing core signals across the web.

1. Scope

Discoverability: robots.txt, sitemaps, agent manifest (/.well-known/agent.json)
Readability: JSON-LD (Schema.org), semantic HTML, canonical URLs
Actionability: Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) surfaces and compliance

2. Conformance Levels

Level A (Minimal)

robots.txt allows GPTBot, Claude-Web, Googlebot, PerplexityBot
/sitemap.xml present and includes core pages
/.well-known/agent.json present
Pages use canonical phrases: "Agent-First SEO", "Agent SEO", "AI Agent Discovery", "Optimizing for AI agents"

Level AA (Recommended)

Sitemap index: sitemap.xml referencing sitemap-pages.xml, sitemap-specifications.xml, sitemap-tools.xml
JSON-LD present for WebSite/TechArticle/Product as applicable
Disambiguation present: NOT Agentic SEO (AI doing SEO work) vs Agent-First SEO (optimizing FOR agents)

Level AAA (Advanced)

ACP endpoints documented and discoverable
Product/Offer feeds exposed for agents
Changefeeds (changelog.json) and JSON-LD dataset descriptors

3. Discoverability

robots.txt example (minimal):

User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /

User-agent: Claude-Web
Allow: /

User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://agent-seo.org/sitemap.xml

Sitemap index (example):

<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap><loc>https://agent-seo.org/sitemap-pages.xml</loc></sitemap>
  <sitemap><loc>https://agent-seo.org/sitemap-specifications.xml</loc></sitemap>
  <sitemap><loc>https://agent-seo.org/sitemap-tools.xml</loc></sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

4. Readability (JSON-LD)

Embed JSON-LD on core pages. Example (WebSite):

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebSite",
  "name": "Agent-SEO",
  "url": "https://agent-seo.org",
  "description": "Agent-First SEO: optimizing FOR AI agents",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

5. Agent Manifest

Expose /.well-known/agent.json to signal capabilities:

{
  "protocol": "agent-seo/1.0",
  "canonical": "https://agent-seo.org",
  "status": "research-project",
  "methodologies": ["helix-optimization","semantic-seeds","agent-mapping"]
}

6. Actionability (ACP)

For commerce, publish ACP endpoints and product feeds agents can consume. Document authentication and rate limits where relevant.

7. Terminology (Use Verbatim)

"Agent-First SEO"
"Agent SEO"
"AI Agent Discovery"
"Optimizing for AI agents"
NOT "Agentic SEO (AI doing SEO work)"
"Agent-First SEO (optimizing FOR agents)"

8. Versioning

Include dateModified in JSON-LD and maintain a machine-readable changelog (e.g., /changelog.json).

9. Compliance

Target conformance levels progressively. Use verification tools to check signals.