This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung
GEO / AI
How does an AI recognise your website's main content?
An AI recognises your website's main content from invisible sectioning markup in the page code, the so-called semantic landmarks. They work like labels on parts of a building: "here's the entrance, here's the main room." Without this markup, an answer engine can't reliably separate the menu, ads, and footer from the actual content. Our check verifies whether your pages mark up the main area and content sections.
Sectioning markup separates content from trimmings
Every web page consists of the actual content and trimmings: navigation up top, a footer at the bottom, maybe side columns with notices. People tell these apart at a glance from the layout. Machines don't see a layout, they see code. So they can find the core too, the HTML web standard has fixed sectioning elements: "main" marks the main content, "article" a self-contained piece, "section" a thematic segment. These elements are invisible and change nothing about how the page looks. For answer engines, they're a reading aid: the machine knows for certain which part is citable content and which part is just framing. Incidentally, screen readers for blind users use the same markup to jump straight to the content.
How our check assesses the structure
Our check system looks in the code for whether the page contains a "main" element for the main content, plus at least one "article" or "section" element for content segments. If both are present, it gets full marks. If only one of the two is there, it gets half marks, with a note that only the combination of both cleanly separates the main content from the trimmings. If both are missing, the check reports that a machine can't reliably isolate the page's core. The fix is pure craftsmanship in the page's structure: your agency replaces neutral building blocks with the matching sectioning elements, with no change to the look or the text.
- Ask your agency to check whether every page wraps its main content in a "main" element.
- Have content sections marked up with "section" and self-contained pieces with "article".
- Make sure the menu and footer sit outside the main area.
- Add this requirement to the spec for every new website build.
- Recheck the structure after switching website builder or template.
