{ "schemaVersion": 1, "title": "PointCast discovery audit: official standards and interpretation", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T16:21:37Z", "scope": "Primary documentation research only. These references do not report PointCast indexing, ranking, traffic, crawler visits, or AI citations.", "interpretation": { "geo": "Generative-engine optimization / AI-search discoverability.", "observedReadiness": "A dated assessment of accessible content, crawl directives, discovery links, metadata, structured data, and machine interfaces.", "measurementRequired": "Actual index coverage requires search-provider evidence; actual AI citation visibility requires provider analytics or a disclosed repeatable query study.", "syntheticRequests": "A request carrying a crawler User-Agent measures that request from the audit network. It does not originate from the provider's verified crawler IPs, does not execute its indexing pipeline, and cannot prove that the provider crawled, indexed, ranked, or cited the page.", "statusClassification": "Compare each endpoint with its documented public contract and intended audience. An authentication, payment, or method gate can be expected behavior; an unauthenticated GET failure alone is not an outage.", "machineInterfaces": "Existence of JSON, OpenAPI, MCP, agents.json, or llms.txt should be evaluated for discoverability, correctness, consistency and usability. Do not claim that mere presence produces search rankings.", "noCompositeScore": "Report explicit passing checks, findings, coverage and exclusions. A percentage of checks passed is not an SEO/GEO ranking or business performance score." }, "sources": [ { "id": "google-ai", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "AI features and your website", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features", "category": "GEO", "facts": [ "AI Overviews and AI Mode use the established SEO requirements. A supporting-link page must be indexed and eligible for a Search snippet.", "Google does not require a new machine-readable AI text file or special schema.org type for these features.", "Google recommends crawl access through robots and infrastructure, internal links, important content as text, and structured data that agrees with visible text.", "Eligibility does not guarantee crawling, indexing or serving. AI-feature traffic is included in Search Console's Web search type." ], "auditInference": "Label text availability, source clarity and discovery as readiness; keep Google index and AI citation outcomes unmeasured without provider evidence.", "sourceDate": "2025-12-10", "sourceDateKind": "last updated", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-technical", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "Google Search technical requirements", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/technical", "category": "Technical SEO", "facts": [ "Minimum eligibility requires accessible Googlebot, HTTP 200, and indexable content; meeting these requirements does not guarantee indexing.", "A login-required page is not publicly crawlable by Googlebot.", "A blocked URL can still appear without its content; noindex must be exposed to an allowed crawl to be read." ], "auditInference": "Separate public indexable pages from intentionally private or gated services when selecting the denominator.", "sourceDate": "2025-12-18", "sourceDateKind": "last updated", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-robots", "publisher": "Google Crawling Infrastructure", "title": "How Google interprets the robots.txt specification", "url": "https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/robots-txt/robots-txt-spec", "category": "Bots", "facts": [ "Rules apply to the robots file's host, protocol and port. Google supports user-agent, allow, disallow and sitemap, but does not support crawl-delay.", "Google selects the most specific matching user-agent group. Matching specific groups merge with each other, but not with the wildcard group.", "The longest applicable path governs; equally specific conflicts favor access.", "Sitemap declarations are global discovery signals, independent of user-agent groups.", "Google treats robots 4xx except 429 as no crawl restrictions; robots 5xx and network failures can interrupt crawling." ], "auditInference": "Evaluate effective path permission per bot. Do not assume a named bot inherits wildcard restrictions.", "sourceDate": "2026-08-31", "sourceDateKind": "last updated", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-robots-meta", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "Robots meta tags, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots-meta-tag", "category": "Technical SEO", "facts": [ "HTML robots metadata and X-Robots-Tag control indexing and previews; crawlers must be able to fetch them.", "Absent restrictions, indexing and serving are allowed; an explicit index tag is not required.", "For conflicting Google indexing or preview directives, the more restrictive rule applies.", "nosnippet also prevents content from direct input into Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode; data-nosnippet limits selected text." ], "auditInference": "Check response headers and initial/rendered HTML. Missing an explicit index tag is not a defect.", "sourceDate": "2026-03-24", "sourceDateKind": "last updated", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-sitemaps", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "Build and submit a sitemap", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap", "category": "Technical SEO", "facts": [ "Sitemaps should contain preferred canonical URLs and may be advertised through robots.txt or submitted through Search Console.", "Submitting a sitemap is a hint, not a guarantee that Google downloads it or crawls its URLs.", "lastmod is useful when consistently verifiable and represents a significant content, structured-data or link update." ], "auditInference": "Count sitemap files and distinct listed URLs separately from fetched pages. Track advertised, reachable, valid and sampled URLs with their own denominators.", "sourceDate": null, "sourceDateKind": "not recorded", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-canonicals", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "How to specify a canonical URL with rel=\"canonical\" and other methods", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls", "category": "Technical SEO", "facts": [ "Redirects and canonical link annotations are strong canonical preferences; sitemap inclusion is weaker.", "Google can choose a canonical without a declared preference; declaring one is not an absolute indexing requirement." ], "auditInference": "Treat conflicting or wrong canonicals as actionable signals. Classify an absent self-canonical as a consistency opportunity, not automatic deindexing.", "sourceDate": null, "sourceDateKind": "not recorded", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-js", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "Understand the JavaScript SEO basics", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/javascript/javascript-seo-basics", "category": "Renderability", "facts": [ "Google separates crawling, rendering and indexing, and can execute JavaScript with Chromium.", "It discovers standard href links from response and rendered HTML; blocked pages or blocked scripts do not render.", "Server rendering or prerendering remains useful because not every bot can execute JavaScript.", "Unique descriptive titles and descriptions help users distinguish results; canonical values should remain consistent across HTML and JavaScript." ], "auditInference": "Compare the initial response with browser-rendered text and links. A successful browser visit alone does not prove all crawlers see the same content.", "sourceDate": null, "sourceDateKind": "not recorded", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-structured-data", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "General structured data guidelines", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/sd-policies", "category": "Technical SEO", "facts": [ "Structured data can enable eligible rich features but never guarantees appearance.", "It must accurately represent visible main content and comply with feature-specific and general guidelines.", "Google supports JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa. Access controls can prevent eligibility." ], "auditInference": "JSON parsing and counting types only establishes syntax/presence; semantic suitability and provider validation remain separate checks.", "sourceDate": null, "sourceDateKind": "not recorded", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-bot-roles", "publisher": "Google Crawling Infrastructure", "title": "List of Google's common crawlers", "url": "https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-common-crawlers", "category": "Bots", "facts": [ "Googlebot controls Google Search crawl access, including Search features.", "Google-Extended is a robots.txt product token with no separate HTTP User-Agent; it controls certain Gemini training/grounding uses.", "Google-Extended does not determine Google Search inclusion or ranking.", "HTTP User-Agent strings can be spoofed." ], "auditInference": "Do not run a 'Google-Extended HTTP crawler' probe or score its permission as Google Search permission.", "sourceDate": "2026-07-14", "sourceDateKind": "last updated", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "google-bot-verification", "publisher": "Google Crawling Infrastructure", "title": "Verify requests from Google crawlers and fetchers", "url": "https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/verify-google-requests", "category": "Bots", "facts": [ "Google documents reverse DNS plus confirming forward DNS, or matching published provider IP ranges, to verify requests.", "Common automated crawlers respect robots. Special-case and user-triggered fetchers can have different rules." ], "auditInference": "Verified server logs and provider tooling can establish actual crawler access; an audit request with a copied UA cannot.", "sourceDate": "2026-03-20", "sourceDateKind": "last updated", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "openai-bots", "publisher": "OpenAI", "title": "Overview of OpenAI Crawlers", "url": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots", "category": "Bots", "facts": [ "OAI-SearchBot serves ChatGPT search; GPTBot gathers content that may be used for model training. Their controls are independent.", "OpenAI recommends allowing searchbot robots access and its published IP ranges for search discoverability. Search opt-outs can still permit navigational links.", "ChatGPT-User handles some user-triggered visits and is not an automatic crawler or search-inclusion control; robots rules may not apply.", "Robots search changes can take about 24 hours to propagate." ], "auditInference": "Keep search, training and user-directed access distinct, and leave policy changes to the owner.", "sourceDate": null, "sourceDateKind": "not recorded", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "anthropic-bots", "publisher": "Anthropic / Claude Help Center", "title": "Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler?", "url": "https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-data-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler", "category": "Bots", "facts": [ "ClaudeBot collects possible training data, Claude-SearchBot improves search retrieval, and Claude-User retrieves content at users' direction.", "Anthropic says its bots honor robots.txt and supports the nonstandard Crawl-delay extension.", "Disabling search or user retrieval can reduce visibility for those use cases.", "Anthropic publishes a source-IP list and recommends robots directives for opt-outs on each relevant subdomain." ], "auditInference": "Do not infer search access from ClaudeBot permission alone, or apply Google's Crawl-delay behavior to Anthropic.", "sourceDate": "2026-04-07", "sourceDateKind": "article date", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "bing-verification", "publisher": "Microsoft Bing", "title": "How to verify Bingbot", "url": "https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/how-to-verify-bingbot-3905dc26", "category": "Bots", "retrievalNote": "Official search excerpt read; document body requires JavaScript and was unavailable to the web text extractor.", "facts": [ "The official help excerpt describes verifying claimed Bingbot traffic using reverse DNS and a confirming forward IP lookup." ], "auditInference": "Label Bing UA-only requests as synthetic. Do not assert verified Bingbot access from them.", "sourceDate": null, "sourceDateKind": "not recorded", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "bing-ai-measurement", "publisher": "Microsoft Bing", "title": "Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview", "url": "https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2026/2/Introducing-AI-Performance-in-Bing-Webmaster-Tools-Public-Preview/", "category": "GEO", "facts": [ "The public preview reports citations, cited pages and sampled grounding phrases across supported Microsoft Copilot, Bing AI summaries and selected partner surfaces.", "Citations and cited-page metrics do not indicate rank, authority or placement.", "Microsoft recommends clear headings, substantive evidence, accuracy, freshness and consistent entities." ], "auditInference": "Provider analytics could support a later measured GEO view. Without authorized data, show citation performance as not measured.", "sourceDate": "2026-02-10", "sourceDateKind": "published", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "bing-snippet-controls", "publisher": "Microsoft Bing", "title": "Bing introduces support for the data-nosnippet HTML attribute", "url": "https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2025/10/Bing-Introduces-Support-for-the-data-nosnippet-HTML-Attribute/", "category": "Technical SEO", "facts": [ "Bing supports data-nosnippet for excluding sections from snippets and AI answers while retaining their indexability and ranking availability.", "noindex, nosnippet and preview limits have different scopes.", "URL inspection can show last crawl time; effects depend on recrawling." ], "auditInference": "Respect intentional premium-content preview restrictions; do not equate them with a site-wide outage.", "sourceDate": "2025-10-15", "sourceDateKind": "published", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "llms-proposal", "publisher": "Jeremy Howard / llmstxt.org", "title": "The /llms.txt file, v2", "url": "https://llmstxt.org/", "category": "Machine discovery", "status": "Primary proposal, not a search-provider guarantee", "facts": [ "The v2 proposal describes concise background, guidance and links that help agents navigate a site.", "It proposes clean Markdown counterparts and alternate/text-markdown plus describedby link relations.", "The document presents llms.txt as a proposal rather than an indexing or ranking guarantee." ], "auditInference": "Assess existing files for truth, freshness, resolvable links and consistency. Treat missing or stale files as agent-usability findings without invented GEO effects.", "sourceDate": "2026-08-10", "sourceDateKind": "modified", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "openapi", "publisher": "OpenAPI Initiative / Linux Foundation", "title": "OpenAPI Specification v3.2.1", "url": "https://spec.openapis.org/oas/v3.2.1.html", "category": "Machine discovery", "facts": [ "OpenAPI describes HTTP API capabilities for humans and computers, reducing guesswork about how to call a service." ], "auditInference": "Validate the service's declared version, endpoints, methods, response contracts and authentication descriptions. An OpenAPI document is integration evidence, not proof of AI-search visibility.", "sourceDate": "2026-09-10", "sourceDateKind": "specification publication", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "mcp", "publisher": "Model Context Protocol", "title": "MCP specification (2025-11-25)", "url": "https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-11-25", "category": "Machine discovery", "facts": [ "MCP standardizes context and tool integration using JSON-RPC, capability negotiation, and resources/prompts/tools.", "The specification treats user consent, access controls, privacy and tool safety as core integration concerns." ], "auditInference": "Test advertised protocol functionality only within authorized read-only scope. A manifest or HTTP endpoint alone does not demonstrate a working MCP handshake or search discoverability.", "sourceDate": null, "sourceDateKind": "not recorded", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T15:57:49Z" }, { "id": "perplexity-bots", "publisher": "Perplexity", "title": "Perplexity Crawlers", "url": "https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/resources/perplexity-crawlers", "category": "bots", "facts": [ "PerplexityBot is a search crawler rather than a crawler for foundation-model training.", "Perplexity-User performs user-requested retrieval, not automatic crawling or foundation-model training; it generally ignores robots.txt rules.", "Perplexity publishes separate IP address lists and recommends combining User-Agent matching with IP verification." ], "auditInference": "Show search crawling and user-triggered retrieval as different roles. A copied User-Agent from this audit network does not verify a Perplexity source.", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T16:19:16Z" }, { "id": "applebot", "publisher": "Apple", "title": "About Applebot", "url": "https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829", "category": "bots", "facts": [ "Applebot powers search features including Spotlight, Siri and Safari.", "Applebot-Extended does not crawl pages; it controls use of data crawled by Applebot for foundation-model training.", "Applebot-Extended restrictions do not determine Apple Search ranking. Apple documents IP ranges and reverse/forward DNS verification." ], "auditInference": "Assess Applebot-Extended as a robots data-use policy token, not a separate HTTP crawler probe.", "sourceDate": "2026-09-04", "sourceDateKind": "published", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T16:19:16Z" }, { "id": "commoncrawl", "publisher": "Common Crawl", "title": "Frequently Asked Questions", "url": "https://commoncrawl.org/faq", "category": "bots", "facts": [ "CCBot is an automated crawler that checks robots.txt and fetches permitted pages using HTTP GET.", "The current documented User-Agent is CCBot/2.0. It does not execute JavaScript or use cookies.", "Common Crawl uses sitemap declarations as discovery signals, supports Crawl-delay, and publishes IP ranges and reverse/forward DNS examples." ], "auditInference": "Server-readable text matters to this crawler. A successful CCBot-labelled audit request does not establish a genuine Common Crawl visit or inclusion in its sampled dataset.", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T16:19:16Z" }, { "id": "amazonbot", "publisher": "Amazon", "title": "About AmazonBot", "url": "https://developer.amazon.com/amazonbot", "category": "bots", "facts": [ "Amazonbot gathers public web content to improve Amazon products and services, including possible AI-model training.", "Amzn-SearchBot is used for search, while Amzn-User supports user-triggered retrieval. Their controls are separate from Amazonbot.", "Amazon documents robots rules for automated crawlers and published IP ranges; user-directed retrieval may not follow every robots instruction." ], "auditInference": "Describe Amazonbot as an Amazon crawler with its documented data-use scope, and keep search/user-fetch roles and verified source evidence separate.", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T16:19:16Z" }, { "id": "google-product-snippet", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "Product snippet structured data", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/product-snippet", "category": "seo", "sourceDate": "2026-09-08", "sourceDateKind": "last updated", "facts": [ "Product snippets require name and at least one valid review, aggregateRating or offers path. A valid offer does not also require a review or aggregate rating.", "Offer requires price or priceSpecification.price. Availability and priceCurrency are recommended for snippets.", "Product rich results support a page focused on one product or its variants; Google recommends product pages rather than mixed catalogs." ], "auditInference": "A missing required property affects possible Product snippet eligibility, not ordinary page indexability. Check the applicable page type and truthful visible data before suggesting markup changes.", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T16:21:37Z" }, { "id": "google-merchant-listing", "publisher": "Google Search Central", "title": "Merchant listing structured data", "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/merchant-listing", "category": "seo", "sourceDate": "2026-09-08", "sourceDateKind": "last updated", "facts": [ "Merchant-listing requirements differ from Product snippets. Product name, image and offers are required.", "Offer requires an active price greater than zero and currency; availability is recommended." ], "auditInference": "Apply the requirements for the intended feature and actual buying experience. Never convert an unknown or null price into a fictitious zero price, or invent ratings or stock availability.", "checkedAt": "2026-10-03T16:21:37Z" } ], "suggestedDashboardLabels": { "summary": "Discovery readiness snapshot", "coverage": "Observed / sampled / excluded", "unknowns": [ "Google index coverage", "Bing index coverage", "AI citation frequency", "Search rankings", "Organic traffic", "Verified crawler visits" ], "syntheticBots": "Synthetic User-Agent compatibility probes", "expectedGates": "Expected access or method gates", "standards": "Official guidance checked October 3, 2026", "staleness": "Snapshot; rerun the reproducible audit to refresh" }, "researchLimitations": [ "No PointCast analytics, Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, crawler logs or actual citation study was accessed for this research.", "Bing help documents are a JavaScript app. Only an official excerpt supported the Bing verification entry.", "Bing sitemap and duplicate-content blog fetches failed; their bodies were not used as evidence.", "The reviewed MCP URL identifies one protocol revision; this research does not assert that it is the latest revision.", "No primary source reviewed establishes generic agents.json as a universal required crawler-discovery standard." ] }