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AI Findability Checklist: 12 Points to Get Cited by AI (2026)
Updated August 2026 · 8 min read · By MintShovels Team
"Findability" means being easy for both people and machines to locate and understand. This 12-point checklist turns vague advice about AI search into concrete edits you can make today.
The checklist
- One clear target question per page. If you can't write it in 10 words, split the page.
- Answer in the first 40 words. Models lift the earliest clear statement.
- A title that matches real phrasing. Mirror how people actually ask, not how you'd brand it.
- Descriptive H2s. Each should read like a question someone would type.
- Short paragraphs. Under three sentences each, so snippets are clean.
- Real facts, not filler. Dates, numbers, and named sources are quotable; fluff is not.
- FAQ section with genuine questions. Pair it with FAQPage markup.
- At least one schema.org type. Article, FAQ, Product, or HowTo — enough for a model to label your content.
- A visible author and publish date. Trust signals AI uses to filter.
- Internal links with descriptive anchor text. Helps the crawler understand page relationships.
- A readable URL. Short, lowercase, and containing the topic word.
- Recently verified. Open the page, confirm the facts are current, update the date.
Why this works
AI assistants don't rank pages the way Google does — they compose answers from the clearest available fragments. Every point above increases the chance that a fragment from your page is the one the model picks. None of it requires paid tools.
Score yourself: Run your main pages through the
free audit. The AI Search Visibility score covers most of this checklist automatically, so you start from a report instead of guessing.