Why it matters
Six ways your website gets found, trusted and used
A Crawlable report scores your homepage in six areas. Here's what each one means, why it matters to your business, and what we look at.
SEO
Search engine optimisation
Can search engines find and rank you?
Search is still where most people go when they need something. If a search engine can't crawl your page, can't tell what it's about, or finds it slow and awkward on a phone, you won't show up when people look for what you offer.
Why it matters
- Ordinary search results are still the biggest source of visitors for most websites, and they cost nothing per click.
- AI answer engines and assistants lean on the same search indexes, so weak SEO holds back AEO and GEO too.
- A clear title and meta description decide what people see in the results, and whether they click on you or the next result.
- Google indexes the mobile version of your page first, so a page that breaks on a phone is judged on its worst version.
What Crawlable checks
- Title, meta description and heading structure
- Canonical tag, HTTPS and mobile readiness
- Broken links and image alt text
- Lighthouse's SEO audits from Google PageSpeed Insights
AEO
Answer engine optimisation
Can answer engines quote you directly?
More and more searches end with an answer rather than a list of links: Google's AI Overviews, featured snippets and voice assistants all lift a direct answer from a page. Answer engine optimisation is about making your page the one they quote.
Why it matters
- When the answer appears at the top of the results, the source it came from gets the credit and the attention.
- Pages that say plainly what you do, where and for whom are much easier for a machine to summarise correctly.
- Structured data such as Organization, LocalBusiness, FAQ and Product schema hands engines facts they can trust, without guesswork.
- Writing in questions and answers matches the way people now phrase searches, especially by voice.
What Crawlable checks
- Organization, LocalBusiness, FAQ and Product schema
- Question-and-answer shaped content
- What you do, where, and for whom, stated up front
GEO
Generative engine optimisation
Will AI assistants recommend you?
ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and other AI assistants write their own answers and decide which businesses to mention. Generative engine optimisation is about making sure they can reach your site, understand it, and feel confident recommending you.
Why it matters
- People increasingly ask an assistant for a recommendation instead of searching, and the assistant names only a handful of options.
- If robots.txt blocks AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot or PerplexityBot, those tools can't read your site at all, often without anyone realising.
- An llms.txt file and a sitemap give AI tools a short, accurate summary of who you are and where your important pages live.
- Being cited by an AI answer builds trust in the same way a recommendation from a friend does.
What Crawlable checks
- How robots.txt treats GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot
- llms.txt, your sitemap and entity data
- A live check of whether Perplexity cites you
Performance
Loading speed on a phone
Does your page load quickly?
Speed is the first thing every visitor experiences. A page that takes too long to show its content, freezes when tapped, or jumps around as it loads loses people before they've read a word.
Why it matters
- Visitors leave slow pages, particularly on a phone and a patchy connection, and every one who leaves is a lost enquiry or sale.
- Core Web Vitals (loading, responsiveness and visual stability) are part of the page experience signals Google uses in ranking.
- Faster pages are cheaper for crawlers to fetch, so search engines and AI tools can read more of your site.
- Speed problems are usually fixable: oversized images, render-blocking scripts and heavy third-party tags are the common causes.
What Crawlable checks
- Google Lighthouse's mobile performance score
- Largest Contentful Paint, layout shift and blocking time
- Real-visitor Core Web Vitals from the Chrome UX Report, where Google has them
Security & Email
Browser security and email authentication
Is the site hardened, and is your mail trusted?
Security protects your visitors in the browser and protects your name in their inbox. The website side is about HTTPS and the security headers that stop common attacks; the email side is about proving that mail from your domain really comes from you.
Why it matters
- Browsers flag sites without HTTPS as not secure, which puts visitors off before they've seen your content.
- Security headers such as HSTS, Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options shut down whole classes of attack, like downgrades, injected scripts and clickjacking.
- Without SPF, DKIM and DMARC, anyone can send email that looks like it came from you, and your customers are the ones who get phished.
- Gmail, Yahoo and other providers increasingly expect this authentication, so mail without it is more likely to land in spam or be rejected.
What Crawlable checks
- HTTPS and HSTS
- Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options and Referrer-Policy
- MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records for your domain
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 AA automated checks
Can everyone use your page?
Accessibility means everyone can use your site, including people who are blind or have low vision, who can't use a mouse, or who rely on captions or a screen reader. WCAG 2.2 AA is the standard most laws and policies point to.
Why it matters
- A large share of people live with a disability, and many more have a temporary injury, an older phone or bright sunlight on their screen. An inaccessible site turns them away.
- Accessibility is a legal requirement in many places, including under the European Accessibility Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and complaints and lawsuits are common.
- Much of what helps people also helps machines: alt text, real headings, labelled buttons and clear link text make your page easier for search engines and AI tools to understand.
- Accessible sites are simply easier for everyone to use, which shows up in how long people stay and whether they get in touch.
What Crawlable checks
- Google Lighthouse's accessibility score, from the axe-core rules
- Text contrast, alt text, form labels and link names
- Tap target size, page language and heading order
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