AI-search launch checklist for SaaS founders
Make the public launch site easy to crawl, index, render, and understand before distribution begins. This checklist covers the technical foundation for Google and AI-search discovery without promising rankings, mentions, or citations.
Direct answer
A SaaS launch site is technically ready for AI search when its core pages are public and indexable, the intended search and fetch crawlers are not accidentally blocked, the edge stack returns useful HTML, each page has a consistent canonical identity, and the team can measure crawling, indexing, impressions, and conversions separately.
Seven checks before launch
Check
high priorityMake the product understandable without a login
Publish a clear homepage plus public product, use-case, pricing, documentation, and contact information where they apply. State who the product is for, what it does, and what makes the claim credible.
Ready when: A first-time visitor can identify the product, audience, core workflow, and next step from public pages.
Check
critical priorityConfirm Google can index the launch pages
Return a useful 200 response, remove accidental noindex directives, choose one canonical URL per page, include the pages in internal navigation, and inspect them in Google Search Console after deployment.
Ready when: The deployed HTML exposes the intended title, description, canonical, index directive, and meaningful page content.
Check
critical prioritySet crawler access by purpose
Review robots.txt separately for AI search crawlers, user-triggered fetchers, and training crawlers. Choose each policy deliberately instead of assuming one vendor bot controls every product feature.
Ready when: Search-facing pages have an intentional policy for every relevant crawler role, documented with the product team.
Check
high priorityCheck the CDN, WAF, and redirects
Test the public URL through the same edge stack visitors use. Look for bot challenges, login redirects, geographic blocks, redirect loops, and different responses based on user agent.
Ready when: A diagnostic crawler request reaches the intended final URL without a challenge or server error. This is still not proof that an official crawler IP will be allowed.
Check
high priorityReturn the core meaning in server HTML
View the initial HTML response without relying on clicks or delayed client-side requests. Keep the product name, explanation, primary headings, key links, and index metadata available there.
Ready when: The initial response contains the page identity and useful copy even before client JavaScript finishes.
Check
medium priorityAlign canonicals, navigation, and the sitemap
Use clean self-canonicals on indexable pages, link priority pages from relevant navigation and copy, and publish a sitemap containing only canonical URLs with honest modification dates.
Ready when: Each priority URL has one consistent public identity across links, canonical tags, redirects, and the sitemap.
Check
medium priorityMeasure discovery after launch
Record the launch date, submit or refresh the sitemap in Search Console, inspect priority URLs, review server or CDN crawler logs where available, and compare organic audit completions over time.
Ready when: The team can distinguish crawling, indexing, impressions, clicks, and completed audits instead of treating them as one metric.
Crawler policy
Do not treat every vendor bot as the same thing
Search, user-triggered fetches, model training, and ordinary web search are distinct controls. Verify current names and behavior in each provider's first-party documentation before changing a production robots.txt file.
| Role | Examples | What the decision means |
|---|---|---|
| AI search | OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot | Access can affect whether public pages are available to the vendor’s search product. It does not guarantee selection or citation. |
| User fetch | ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User | These fetch a page in response to a user action. Treat them separately from unattended crawling. |
| Training | GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended | These policies concern model development or grounding controls, not ordinary Google Search indexing. |
| Web search | Googlebot, bingbot | Keep ordinary search crawlability healthy; Google says its AI search features use existing Search requirements rather than a special AI file or markup. |
# Search crawlers: decide deliberately
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
# Training crawlers: a separate decision
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /Illustration of per-role rules only, not a recommendation for your site.
What the audit returns
Know what the audit actually returns
AEOprobe reports technical observations from the pages it can inspect. The result is a diagnostic baseline, not evidence that a brand is present in live AI answers.
- Observed crawler rules grouped by search, user-fetch, and training purpose
- Affected URLs for canonical, sitemap, rendering, metadata, and content-structure findings
- Severity-ranked recommendations with the evidence available to the audit
Run the checklist against the deployed site
Start with a free technical audit, fix the highest-priority blockers, and use Search Console plus your own conversion events to measure what happens next. Already live? The longer 15-check AEO audit checklist covers recurring audits.
Run free audit