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How to audit for AI Accessibility on your Front...

How to audit for AI Accessibility on your Front & Back End

An introduction to technical AI SEO from Dave the SEO, presented at the Barcelona International Search Summit on the 13th November 2025. Covering current standards, what's coming up right now and in the near future as AI Search and LLM Chatbots continue to evolve.

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davetheseo

November 12, 2025
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  1. How to audit AI accessibility of your site's front end

    & back end davetheseo.com linkedin.com/in/davecousin/ @davetheseo.bsky.social
  2. Intro This stuff wasn’t a thing 24 months ago Most

    of it wasn’t 12 months ago Apologies if this time next year it’s out of date Or even next week
  3. Intro We need to optimise for LLM Chatbots & AI

    Search While remembering they aren’t built like what we’ve known to date
  4. LLM Chatbots aren’t search engines: • Designed to extract information

    • Not recommend pages Want to access information: • Easily as possible • Machine friendly way, • For themselves
  5. Machine Friendly AI is trying to understand a web built

    for Humans Our job is to make it accessible to Machines (LLM Chatbots & other AI Tools)
  6. Front End & Back End Your Front End is your

    website, The interface humans use to: •Interact with your Business •Access Information •Carry out Actions Google spent decades understanding the web ‘like a human’
  7. Timeline LLMs Search (for RAG) Fetch Text from Pages Yesterday

    LLMs using browser based tools LLMs take actions on site Today Tomorrow Agentic Commerce ACP & More Feeds & Discovery MCP / Back End Access N
  8. Timeline LLMs using browser based tools LLMs take actions on

    site Today Tomorrow Agentic Commerce ACP & More Feeds & Discovery MCP / Back End Access ? Next Week
  9. AIOs Uses Search Engine(s), then check live page Uses an

    Index to find Candidate Documents * *Gemini searches Google and only retrieves pages from an index
  10. How & Why LLM Chatbots Search? RAG for: (Retrieval Augmented

    Generation) • More complex queries • Recent information Use a Search Engine
  11. What AI Tools can (and can’t see) Visible Text if

    in source code & maybe marked up Anything Else What AI Tools can (and can’t see)
  12. Basic Accessibility Standards ChatGPT can see: • All visible text

    content • Status Codes (if none provided then this generally indicates a 200) Claude can see: • Visible Main Content Text • Where there would be images & Alt Text • Errors e.g. ‘Unable to fetch the URL’ All can see: • Headings • Links • Lists (bullet points and numbered) • Tables Perplexity can see: • Relevant sections of pages, based on a retrieval algorithm • Probably uses H Tags, Schema and Semantic HTML as a minimum to understand and chunk up page Gemini can see: • Everything, Rendered page stored in Index
  13. What do you Want them to See Probably Allow ClaudeBot

    GPTBot PerplexityBot Google-Extended meta-externalagent ccBot Applebot-Extended FacebookBot Allow ChatGPT_User Claude-User Claude-SearchBot Perplexity-User Googlebot GoogleAgent-Mariner NovaAct Gemini-Deep-Research
  14. Page Accessible in Crawler = The LLM Chatbot can see

    it Page Not Accessible in Crawler = It might be your IP Address
  15. Prompting AI to check: Without Hallucinations ChatGPT: “Try to open

    this URL [URL] and tell me exactly what happens including any error codes or partial results.” All: “On this URL [URL] can you see the text [text]? What text comes immediately afterwards? Let me know of any error messages you get fetching the page”
  16. Fixing your Security Settings: WAF Use WAF (Web Application Firewall)

    explicit settings and Update Published IP Ranges ChatGPT: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11845367-chatgpt-agent- allowlisting Claude: https://docs.claude.com/en/api/ip-addresses Perplexity: https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots
  17. Fixing your Security Settings: Robots.txt More Specific Rules take Precedent….

    …Then Order Explicitly allow known bots Test in Screaming Frog
  18. Fixing your Security Settings: Robots.txt More Specific Rules take Precedent

    Explicitly allow all known bots Test in Screaming Frog
  19. From Project Mariner to Atlas & Comet Rendering pages for

    users takes a lot of resource and energy So let’s use someone else’s resources & Energy
  20. AI Assistant Browsing Ability Gemini Project Mariner Future Version of

    Chrome? ChatGPT Atlas Browser (MacOS, windows to come) Claude Puppeteer & Other Add-Ons Copilot CoPilot in Edge Perplexity Comet Browser
  21. What an AI Browser Session Can See Snap Shots The

    Rendered Code incl. •Markup & Tags
  22. Standards for Browser Based AI Accessibility Make ‘human’ pages ‘Machine

    Friendly’ with: • Semantic HTML • Structured Data – any available • Headings • ARIA Roles, Labels, States & Properties • Static Links Semantic HTML Tags: • <article> • <details> • <footer> • <header> • <main> • <nav> • <section> • <summary> Common useful ARIA Roles include: • role="main" • role="navigation" • role="button" • role="banner" • role="contentinfo" https://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp
  23. Standards for Browser Based AI Accessibility •Are all elements easy

    to interact with using: • Tick Boxes • Radio Buttons • Text Boxes https://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp
  24. Standards for Browser Based AI Accessibility Avoid Interactions requiring Human

    Input Avoid Human Verification https://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_semantic_elements.asp
  25. MCP, ACP More Protocols to Come This could become a

    standards war So far everyone is sharing though Could change, especially with Agentic Commerce & Payments
  26. AI Assistant Commerce Ability Google: Gemini / AI Mode Project

    Mariner Shop with AI Mode - Beta ChatGPT Instant Checkout Meta Claude CoPilot Nope Amazon Alexa+, ‘Buy for Me’ (in Beta) Perplexity Comet Browser
  27. Open AI are getting a head start in ChatGPT In

    partnership with Shopify & Stripe & now PayPal https://developers.openai.com/commerce/
  28. ChatGPT can choose & purchase for you through compatible sites

    Etsy & Shopify live now on ‘Instant Checkout’ https://developers.openai.com/commerce/
  29. Create a feed to Specs Expand beyond other channels, more:

    • Fields • Detail & USPs • Product Specs • Use Cases https://developers.openai.com/commerce/ Optimise your Feed to win
  30. Apply to OpenAI’s Instant Checkout now Build ACP Checkout API

    requiring: a) REST API Endpoint b) Using Webhooks (push notifications) c) Ability to return Checkout Status Use Stripe or PayPal (more to come) https://developers.openai.com/commerce/ There’s a delay processing Applications so:
  31. MCP Server Access MCP Server can be remote or local

    Tells AI Agent what Endpoint does Translates between the two
  32. Where is MCP Now? ‘Productivity’ & SaaS e.g. Google Docs

    Limited Support from B2C Sites & Services Limited ‘Out of the Box’ Integration
  33. Where is MCP Now? Needs Discovery Solution Major Security Concerns

    Mainly Local Servers based on Open Source
  34. What MCP could be used for in future SaaS Working

    with Smart Devices Audio & Video control Automation Appointment Bookings: Restaurant, Hotels, JSON-LD versions of pages & Content
  35. What else can we do now to Futureproof? • MCP

    • AI / Machine Friendly / Machine Ready Tag • Machine friendly (e.g JSON-LD), alternate URL • AI Usable Actions Tags • Additional ‘best practice’ / recommended Schema Types &/or properties • Extended Semantic HTML Tags • Extended ARIA • Meta License Tags Ensure site/platform has flexibility e.g. injecting tags Ensure you have Endpoint that can work with External