Can the machine read you?
- Ctrl+U on your four key pages — your sentences appear in the raw HTML
robots.txtallowsOAI-SearchBot,PerplexityBot,Claude-SearchBot,Googlebot,Bingbot- CDN / firewall is not blocking AI crawlers
- Server logs show real AI crawler visits in the last 30 days
- Sitemap is clean; old URLs 301 rather than 404
Can it find you?
- Verified in Bing Webmaster Tools, sitemap submitted, IndexNow on
- Google Search Console verified for every property
- Google Business Profile claimed and every field completed
Do you resolve to one entity?
- One canonical name, address, phone, description — identical everywhere
- Organization schema with a full
sameAslist - Every free directory, register and association listing claimed
- Named people with real credentials attached to the business
Is there anything worth quoting?
- Headings are questions; the sentence beneath answers them directly
- Every paragraph names its subject and survives being lifted out
- Numbers in HTML text, not trapped in images or PDFs
- Adjectives replaced with figures; external claims cited
- At least one page built on data only you have
- One honest comparison page, one real FAQ, one process guide
Does anyone else say so?
- Profiles complete on the review platforms your buyers use
- A steady, honest flow of reviews — and replies to all of them
- Thirty minutes a week on one platform where your buyers talk, under your own name
- Videos answering your top customer questions, with real descriptions and transcripts
Are you measuring?
- A fixed 20-prompt set, run monthly, clean sessions, four columns
- Brand-accuracy questions re-run quarterly
- AI referrals segmented and judged on conversion, not volume
- Quarterly: refresh five pages, re-check
robots.txtand crawler logs
Are you refusing the right things?
- No llms.txt package, no "AI schema", no chunking service
- No bulk AI-generated content, no paid mention networks, no hidden text
- No tool claiming internal platform data, no guaranteed AI rankings
- No statistic repeated without its source
Answering Machines · Compiled August 2026. Every figure sourced in Appendix B. Tactics have a shelf life of roughly eighteen months; the mechanism in Chapter 1 and the scepticism in Chapter 21 should last considerably longer.