AEO Site Architecture: Crawlable, Fast, Structured (10-Point Technical Checklist + Core Web Vitals)
A practical guide to “technical seo for ai” and “site architecture ai search.” Learn how to design a crawlable, fast, and structured site that earns citations in AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Copilot. Includes a 10-point checklist, Core Web Vitals targets, JS rendering guidance, and schema coverage.
AEO-friendly sites are easy to crawl, quick to render, and structured so answer engines can extract short, verifiable passages. This guide distills the technical foundations of site architecture for AI search: clean discovery paths, resilient rendering, Core Web Vitals, and schema that clarifies entities and relationships.
New to AEO? Start with How AI Overviews Work, compare AI Search Optimization vs. Traditional SEO, plan your topic clusters, build a content brief, and structure pages with schema that moves the needle.
Core Web Vitals Targets (What “Good” Looks Like)
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
Aim: ≤ 2.5 s on mobile, 75th percentile. Optimize server TTFB, critical CSS, hero images, and render path.
Learn more: LCP guide
INP (Interaction to Next Paint)
Aim: < 200 ms at the 75th percentile. Minimize long tasks, reduce JS size, and prioritize input handlers.
Learn more: INP guide
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
Aim: < 0.1 at the 75th percentile. Reserve space for images/ads, avoid late-loading UI shifts, and stabilize fonts.
Learn more: CLS guide
10-Point Technical Checklist
1) Crawlable IA & Clean URLs
Keep a shallow hierarchy that mirrors your pillar → cluster model. Use human-readable, stable URLs. Avoid duplicate paths and session parameters. Add breadcrumbs and HTML sitemaps for resiliency.
Why it matters for AEO
Clear paths help crawlers and models find definitive answers quickly and understand topical relationships.
2) Robots.txt, Meta Robots & Canonicals
Block only true waste (admin, faceted infinite combos). Use canonical tags to consolidate duplicates and parameter variants. Keep critical content crawlable and indexable.
Docs: Crawling & Indexing
Guardrail
Never block JS/CSS needed to render content. Blocking resources can break rendering and reduce eligibility for citations.
3) XML Sitemaps (Segmented)
Maintain fresh, segmented sitemaps (blog, docs, products) and include lastmod. Remove 4xx/5xx/redirected URLs to conserve crawl budget for what matters.
Why it matters
Directs bots to your newest, most authoritative answers and reduces wasted fetches.
4) Rendering That Survives JavaScript
Prefer SSR/SSG or reliable CSR with hydration for critical content. Defer non-critical JS. Avoid rendering answers only after client JS executes.
Docs: JavaScript SEO basics
Guardrail
Server-render the answer-first paragraph and key schema so crawlers can fetch them in the first HTML response.
5) Core Web Vitals Engineering
Optimize LCP (TTFB, render path, hero images), INP (cut long tasks, code split, prioritize input), CLS (reserve dimensions, stabilize fonts).
Why it matters
Fast, stable pages reduce abandonment and increase the chance your passages are read and cited.
6) Asset Strategy (Images, Fonts, CSS, JS)
Use responsive images (srcset, modern formats), preconnect to origins, inline critical CSS, lazy-load below-the-fold media, and ship only necessary JS.
Guardrail
Set explicit width/height for media to prevent layout shifts. Use font-display: swap or fallbacks to limit FOIT.
7) Status Codes & Redirect Hygiene
Eliminate soft 404s, long redirect chains, and mixed protocols. Serve cacheable 200s for canonical URLs. Keep 301 maps tight during site moves.
Why it matters
Clean signals help crawlers allocate budget to pages that can be cited and indexed.
8) Crawl Budget Stewardship
Strengthen internal links to priority clusters, fix infinite spaces, and throttle low-value calendars/params. Keep sitemaps and canonicals consistent to guide bots.
Guardrail
Do not throttle pages that carry your best answer-first content. Protect them from noindex/nofollow accidents.
9) Structured Data Coverage
Mark key pages with the right JSON-LD: FAQPage, HowTo, Article/TechArticle, Product, Review. Keep schema in sync with the visible page and validate on each deployment.
Start here: Schema that moves the needle
Why it matters
Schema clarifies entities and relationships so engines can attribute your passages confidently.
10) Caching, CDN, & Preload Strategy
Use a global CDN, long-lived caching with versioned assets, HTTP/2 or HTTP/3, and judicious preconnect/preload for critical resources. Stream HTML early and prioritize above-the-fold content.
Why it matters
Improves LCP and perceived speed, making your answer blocks visible sooner for both users and crawlers.
Implementation Playbook
- Map the cluster IA. Confirm pillar and 6–10 priority clusters; set canonical URLs and breadcrumbs.
- Render critical content server-side. Ensure the answer-first paragraph and JSON-LD are in the first HTML byte.
- Stabilize assets. Reserve media slots, compress hero images, inline critical CSS, and split JS by route.
- Harden discovery. Update robots, fix canonicals, and ship segmented sitemaps with fresh lastmod.
- Measure & iterate. Track LCP/INP/CLS, crawl stats, index coverage, and citations from answer engines.
Helpful Docs
- Chrome/Web Dev: INP replaces FID · INP guide · LCP guide · CLS guide
- Google Search Central: Crawling & indexing · Crawl budget (large sites) · JavaScript SEO basics
Want a technical partner to make this real? Agenxus’s AI Search Optimization service implements SSR/SSG, schema coverage, Core Web Vitals budgets, and internal linking blueprints across your cluster.