How your page gets found — by people and by AIs
You published your brand page. Now: how does anyone find it? This primer explains, in plain terms, the two ways discovery works today — and what SparkleTree does about both, automatically.
The short version: you do nothing. Publishing turns all of this on.
Two ways to be found
Section titled “Two ways to be found”SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the classic one. Google reads your page, decides how relevant it is, and ranks it in a list of results. Someone searches “taco night near me”, sees a list, clicks a link.
GSO (Generative Search Optimization) is the new one. More and more, people don’t search — they ask. They ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or the assistant on their phone: “what’s happening in town tonight?” The AI doesn’t show a list of links. It answers. And it builds that answer from sites it can actually read, understand, and — ideally — ask questions of.
The goal shifts as a result. For SEO, you want to rank. For GSO, you want to be readable and answerable: when an AI is composing an answer, you want your page to be the easy, trustworthy source it reaches for.
Most websites do neither well. Every published SparkleTree page does both, out of the box.
What your page ships automatically
Section titled “What your page ships automatically”Here’s what turns on the moment your page goes live, and what each piece buys you.
A welcome mat for AI crawlers
Section titled “A welcome mat for AI crawlers”Every site has a small file called robots.txt that tells visiting robots what they may read. Many sites accidentally (or deliberately) shut AI crawlers out — which means those AIs don’t know the business exists. Your page explicitly welcomes the major AI crawlers (the ones behind ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google’s AI features) and signals that your content may be used in search and AI answers. You’re opted in to being found.
A sitemap
Section titled “A sitemap”A simple index of every live page on your site — your brand home and each campaign page. Search engines use it to make sure they haven’t missed anything.
llms.txt — the map an AI reads first
Section titled “llms.txt — the map an AI reads first”Think of llms.txt as the orientation sheet for AI visitors: “here’s who this brand is, here’s the site map, here’s how to read pages efficiently, and here’s how to ask questions.” An AI that lands on your site doesn’t have to guess its way around — it gets handed a map.
An agent card
Section titled “An agent card”A small machine-readable card that announces: this site can answer questions. AI frameworks look for exactly this file to discover sites they can talk to, rather than just read. It’s how your page gets found by the growing world of AI agents, not just AI chatbots.
/ask — your built-in AI concierge
Section titled “/ask — your built-in AI concierge”This is the centerpiece. Your page doesn’t just sit there to be read — it can be asked. A visiting AI (or any chat surface) can send your page a question like “what’s on tonight?” and get back a grounded answer built from your live campaigns, with links pointing to the real campaign pages.
So when someone asks their assistant about plans for the evening, your page can answer for itself — accurately, from what’s actually live — instead of the AI guessing from a months-old snapshot.
Markdown twins — a lean version of every page
Section titled “Markdown twins — a lean version of every page”Web pages are heavy: layout, styling, scripts. AIs pay for every word they read, in time and cost. Every page on your site also serves a stripped-down twin — the same content in a lean format that’s roughly 70% smaller and about twice as fast for an AI to read. Cheaper and faster to read means AIs answer questions about you more readily and more reliably.
Structured data (JSON-LD)
Section titled “Structured data (JSON-LD)”Behind the scenes, your page describes itself in the formal vocabulary that Google and AI answer engines trust: this is a real business, here’s its name, logo, social profiles, and here’s the list of what’s on right now.
If you filled in Where to find you on the Publishing tab, this goes further: your page declares your business type (restaurant, bar, café, and so on), street address, and phone number, and your page title carries your city and state. That’s what makes you eligible for “near me” answers — from search engines and AI assistants alike.
IndexNow — instant updates
Section titled “IndexNow — instant updates”Normally, search engines find changes whenever they next wander by — which can take days. Your page pushes a notification to participating search engines the moment you publish, so a campaign that goes live this morning can be findable this afternoon.
What you actually have to do
Section titled “What you actually have to do”Almost nothing. This whole stack is switched on for every published page. The two things worth a minute of your time:
- Fill in Where to find you — it unlocks local search for both Google and AIs.
- Keep campaigns current — every answer your page gives is grounded in what’s live, so a fresh page gives fresh answers.
Want to see it work? Use the Ask an AI about this page links in the Share your page card and watch an assistant read your page and answer questions about your brand.