Google Search Advocate John Mueller and Microsoft’s Fabrice Canel as we speak issued official warnings in opposition to a trending observe within the search advertising and marketing neighborhood: creating separate markdown or JSON pages particularly designed for giant language mannequin crawlers. The responses got here after Lily Ray, Vice President of website positioning Technique and Analysis at Amsive, raised issues in regards to the tactic on November 23, 2025.

Ray’s query addressed rising {industry} dialogue about serving completely different content material to bots than to human guests. “Unsure if you happen to can reply, however beginning to hear quite a bit about creating separate markdown / JSON pages for LLMs and serving these URLs to bots,” Ray wrote in a put up directed at Mueller. “Are you able to share Google’s perspective on this?”

The inquiry touched on basic tensions between rising AI search optimization methods and established search engine insurance policies. A number of advertising and marketing professionals have begun experimenting with creating machine-readable variations of their content material, hoping to enhance visibility in AI-powered search outcomes and chatbot responses. Some practitioners declare optimistic outcomes from the method.

Mueller responded on February 5, 2026, with a characteristically direct evaluation that challenges the technical rationale behind the technique. “I am not conscious of something in that regard,” Mueller acknowledged. “In my POV, LLMs have skilled on – learn & parsed – regular internet pages because the starting, it appears a on condition that they don’t have any issues coping with HTML. Why would they need to see a web page that no consumer sees? And, in the event that they verify for equivalence, why not use HTML?”

The Google consultant’s response identifies a logical inconsistency within the method. Massive language fashions have efficiently processed billions of HTML pages throughout their coaching phases. Creating separate markdown or JSON variations assumes AI techniques can not parse normal internet codecs – an assumption Mueller suggests lacks basis.

Extra considerably, Mueller’s query about serving “a web page that no consumer sees” straight invokes Google’s longstanding prohibition in opposition to cloaking. Cloaking refers to showing different content to search engine crawlers than to human visitors, a observe that has violated search engine pointers for many years. The tactic emerged within the early 2000s as spammers tried to govern rankings by exhibiting keyword-stuffed content material to crawlers whereas displaying completely different materials to customers.

Ray’s authentic put up revealed she had “issues your complete time about managing duplicate content material and serving completely different content material to crawlers than to people.” Her instincts aligned with official coverage. Google’s techniques deal with content material proven completely to bots as potential manipulation, whatever the acknowledged intent behind creating such pages.

Fabrice Canel, Principal Program Supervisor at Microsoft Bing, offered a complementary perspective that emphasised the redundancy reasonably than the coverage violation. “Lily: actually need to double crawl load? We’ll crawl anyway to verify similarity,” Canel wrote. “Non-user variations (crawlable AJAX and like) are sometimes uncared for, damaged. People eyes assist fixing individuals and bot-viewed content material. We like Schema in pages. AI makes us nice at understanding internet pages. Much less is extra in website positioning!”

Canel’s response highlights operational realities that undermine the technique’s effectivity claims. Creating separate bot-only pages doubles the crawling burden on engines like google, which is able to nonetheless have to confirm that bot-facing content material matches user-facing variations. This verification course of eliminates any theoretical effectivity beneficial properties from serving simplified codecs to crawlers.

The Microsoft govt’s remark about “non-user variations” being “usually uncared for, damaged” displays gathered {industry} expertise. Web site homeowners who keep separate cellular websites, printer-friendly variations, or different parallel content material constructions often battle to maintain all variations synchronized. Content material drift between variations creates high quality issues that hurt reasonably than assist search visibility.

Each responses converge on a central theme: traditional HTML remains the appropriate format for both human and machine consumption. The idea that AI techniques require particular formatting contradicts how these applied sciences truly perform. Massive language fashions have demonstrated refined capabilities in parsing complicated HTML constructions, extracting related content material from nested div tags, and understanding semantic relationships inside normal internet markup.

The alternate on November 23, 2025 occurred amid broader {industry} confusion about AI search optimization. Advertising and marketing professionals have encountered quite a few proposals for specialised ways supposedly required for visibility in AI-powered search options. Google’s Search Relations team has consistently emphasized that traditional SEO principles remain effective, opposite to {industry} narratives selling new optimization frameworks.

Ray’s concern about duplicate content material addresses one other dimension of the issue. Web sites that create each human-facing and bot-facing variations of the identical data should one way or the other sign to engines like google which model ought to seem in outcomes. With out clear canonicalization, search techniques could index a number of variations, fragmenting rating indicators and doubtlessly triggering duplicate content material filters that suppress each variations.

The timing of this dialogue proves notably related given the proliferation of AI optimization acronyms all through 2025. Marketing consultants have proposed various frameworks including GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), and AIO (AI Integration Optimization). Mueller warned on August 14, 2025, that aggressive promotion of such acronyms could point out spam and scamming actions.

Business experimentation with separate bot pages displays professional issues about AI search visibility. The rise of ChatGPT, Claude, and different conversational AI techniques has created new discovery channels the place conventional website positioning indicators could not apply. Platforms like Semrush have documented how optimizing content for AI mentions differs from traditional search optimization, reporting practically tripled AI share of voice by way of systematic approaches.

Nevertheless, the trail ahead doesn’t contain creating parallel content material variations. Canel’s emphasis on Schema structured information offers extra actionable steering than separate web page creation. Schema markup permits web site homeowners to supply machine-readable context inside normal HTML pages, giving each customers and bots entry to the identical content material with enhanced semantic understanding.

The “much less is extra” philosophy Canel articulated contradicts the impulse towards creating further pages, separate codecs, and specialised variations. This precept has appeared repeatedly in Google’s guidance about AI search optimization, the place representatives warn in opposition to complexity that serves algorithms reasonably than customers.

Technical concerns past coverage violations make separate bot pages impractical. Fashionable engines like google use refined similarity detection to establish cloaking makes an attempt. Methods evaluate content material proven to authenticated crawlers in opposition to content material retrieved by way of proxy servers mimicking human customers. Substantial variations between variations set off handbook assessment or algorithmic penalties.

The verification course of Canel described means engines like google should crawl each variations regardless. Web site homeowners achieve no bandwidth financial savings or crawl finances advantages from offering separate codecs. As an alternative, they double their upkeep burden whereas growing the chance of synchronization errors that hurt search visibility.

Ray’s February 5, 2026 follow-up remark expressed gratitude for the clarification whereas emphasizing sensible advantages. “Thanks for that information,” she wrote. “I favored the ‘much less is extra in website positioning’ quote. It saves a lot money and time to cease making duplicate pages which can be only a nightmare to handle.”

The website positioning skilled’s response captures the reduction many practitioners really feel when official steering validates their instincts in opposition to pursuing complicated methods. Advertising and marketing groups face fixed stress to undertake new ways as rivals experiment with rising approaches. Clear statements from platform representatives assist professionals keep away from resource-intensive implementations that violate insurance policies.

Business adoption patterns for the markdown web page technique stay tough to quantify. Ray’s preliminary statement famous she was “beginning to hear quite a bit about” the method, suggesting dialogue reasonably than widespread implementation. Some practitioners claiming optimistic outcomes could have confused correlation with causation, attributing visibility beneficial properties to separate pages when different elements drove enhancements.

The dialog unfolded in opposition to the backdrop of broader changes in how search systems process content. Google’s inner restructuring towards LLM-based search architectures grew to become public data by way of Division of Justice courtroom paperwork in Might 2025. These revelations confirmed Google essentially rethinking rating, retrieval, and show mechanisms with giant language fashions taking part in central reasonably than supplementary roles.

Nevertheless, Google’s architectural shifts don’t translate into necessities for web site homeowners to restructure their content material. The corporate’s public steering has persistently maintained that optimizing for AI-powered search requires no fundamental changes from traditional SEO practices. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, acknowledged on December 17, 2025, that “every part we do and all of the issues that we tailor and all of the issues that we attempt to enhance, it is all about how can we reward content material that human beings discover satisfying.”

The markdown web page dialogue intersects with previous warnings about LLM-generated content strategies. Mueller cautioned on August 27, 2025, that utilizing giant language fashions to construct subject clusters creates “legal responsibility” and offers “causes to not go to any a part of your website.” The emphasis on human-focused content material over algorithm-targeted ways kinds a constant thread by way of Google’s AI search steering.

Canel’s reference to Schema markup aligns with established best practices for structured data. Schema.org vocabularies present standardized strategies for describing content material entities, relationships, and attributes inside HTML pages. This method offers AI techniques enhanced context with out requiring separate content material variations.

The “people eyes assist fixing individuals and bot-viewed content material” statement addresses high quality assurance challenges. Web site content material that human guests by no means see usually accumulates errors that may be instantly apparent with visible inspection. Damaged layouts, lacking pictures, incorrect formatting, and different technical issues persist when nobody truly views the affected pages. These points hurt bot comprehension simply as they might impair human understanding.

Advertising and marketing professionals searching for AI search visibility face clearer steering after these official responses. Somewhat than creating separate markdown or JSON pages, web site homeowners ought to give attention to high-quality HTML content material with applicable Schema markup. The identical content material ought to serve each human guests and automatic crawlers, sustaining alignment between consumer expertise and bot accessibility.

The duplicate content material administration challenges Ray recognized lengthen past easy synchronization issues. Engines like google should decide which model represents the canonical supply when a number of URLs include comparable data. With out clear indicators, rating authority fragments throughout variations reasonably than consolidating behind a single most well-liked URL.

Implementation complexity compounds the strategic issues with separate bot pages. Web site homeowners should configure server-side logic to detect bot requests and serve completely different content material based mostly on consumer agent strings. This method requires ongoing upkeep as engines like google modify their crawler identification, creating ongoing technical debt.

The verification burden Canel described means engines like google will proceed accessing each variations. Crawl finances – the variety of pages engines like google will course of from a given website throughout a particular timeframe – will get consumed by each human-facing and bot-facing pages. Websites with restricted crawl capability as a consequence of dimension, authority, or technical constraints can not afford this duplication.

Mueller’s query about LLMs’ HTML processing capabilities displays the precise coaching information these techniques eat. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and different AI firms have skilled their fashions on billions of internet pages in normal HTML format. These techniques have demonstrated refined understanding of complicated markup constructions, CSS styling that impacts content material which means, and JavaScript-generated content material.

The idea that simplified codecs would enhance AI comprehension lacks empirical assist. Massive language fashions extract semantic which means from context clues together with heading hierarchies, listing constructions, desk relationships, and doc movement – all components naturally current in well-structured HTML. Changing to markdown or JSON removes reasonably than enhances these contextual indicators.

Business historical past offers instructive parallels. The cellular internet’s early years noticed debates about whether or not separate cellular websites (m.instance.com) or responsive design serving the identical HTML to all gadgets represented the higher method. Google ultimately advocated for responsive design, citing upkeep burdens and content material parity challenges with separate cellular websites. The identical logic applies to separate bot pages.

Ray’s position as an {industry} thought chief amplifies the importance of her public inquiry. With over 129,000 followers and intensive expertise analyzing algorithm updates, her questions carry weight throughout the website positioning neighborhood. Her willingness to floor issues about trending ways earlier than widespread adoption doubtlessly prevented quite a few web sites from implementing problematic methods.

The dialog’s public nature on social media platforms offers transparency that advantages the broader advertising and marketing neighborhood. Personal communications between particular person web site homeowners and search engine representatives assist particular conditions however do not set up industry-wide understanding. Public exchanges create everlasting data that practitioners can reference when evaluating comparable selections.

Mueller’s response technique emphasised questioning the underlying assumptions reasonably than merely stating coverage. By asking “Why would they need to see a web page that no consumer sees?” he inspired essential fascinated by the rationale behind separate bot pages. This pedagogical method helps advertising and marketing professionals develop higher decision-making frameworks reasonably than merely following guidelines.

Canel’s point out of “crawlable AJAX” references historic challenges with JavaScript-heavy web sites. Engines like google initially struggled to course of content material generated by JavaScript after web page load, main some builders to create server-side rendered variations particularly for crawlers. Fashionable engines like google have largely solved these issues by way of headless browser rendering, making such workarounds pointless.

The precept that AI techniques make engines like google “nice at understanding internet pages” suggests confidence in present processing capabilities. Each Google and Microsoft have invested closely in pure language processing, laptop imaginative and prescient, and different AI applied sciences that energy their search techniques. These investments allow refined content material understanding from normal codecs with out requiring particular lodging.

Ray’s appreciation for the “much less is extra” steering displays broader {industry} fatigue with complexity. Advertising and marketing groups handle growing technical debt from gathered optimization ways, a lot of which offer minimal worth relative to their implementation and upkeep prices. Simplification suggestions resonate with professionals searching for environment friendly approaches.

The alternate demonstrates how social media allows fast coverage clarification that advantages your complete {industry}. Conventional communication channels required ready for official weblog posts, documentation updates, or convention displays. Direct engagement between practitioners and platform representatives accelerates data distribution.

The February 5, 2026 timing positions this steering comparatively early within the markdown web page pattern’s lifecycle. Ray’s statement about “beginning to hear quite a bit about” the method suggests the tactic remained in dialogue reasonably than widespread implementation phases. Early intervention prevents the useful resource waste that happens when firms make investments closely earlier than discovering coverage violations.

Business response to the official steering will seemingly embrace some practitioners arguing that their particular implementations differ from cloaking as a result of they supply worth to AI techniques. Nevertheless, the basic precept stays: exhibiting completely different content material to bots than to customers violates search engine insurance policies no matter acknowledged intentions.

The dialog additionally touches on broader questions on LLM habits and coaching information. The llms.txt protocol proposed in September 2024 faced similar adoption challenges, with main AI platforms together with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic declining to assist the usual. This sample suggests AI firms favor current internet requirements over new protocols.

Advertising and marketing professionals should steadiness experimentation with established pointers. Innovation drives {industry} progress, however violations of core insurance policies create dangers that outweigh potential advantages. The steering from Mueller and Canel offers clear boundaries for professional AI search optimization whereas discouraging approaches that battle with search engine insurance policies.

The emphasis on human-focused content material creation stays constant throughout all current platform steering. Whether or not addressing LLM-generated topic clusters, content fragmentation for AI consumption, or separate bot pages, Google’s representatives emphasize that techniques reward content material written for human profit reasonably than algorithmic manipulation.

Timeline

Abstract

Who: Google Search Advocate John Mueller and Microsoft’s Fabrice Canel responded to inquiry from Lily Ray, Vice President of website positioning Technique and Analysis at Amsive, concerning {industry} practices of making separate content material variations for giant language mannequin crawlers.

What: Each search engine representatives warned in opposition to creating devoted markdown or JSON pages for AI bots, with Mueller questioning why LLMs would want particular codecs once they efficiently course of normal HTML, and Canel emphasizing that engines like google will crawl each variations anyway to confirm similarity. The observe doubtlessly violates longstanding cloaking insurance policies prohibiting completely different content material for bots versus people.

When: The alternate occurred on November 23, 2025, when Ray initially raised the query, with Mueller and Canel responding on February 5, 2026, throughout a interval of heightened {industry} dialogue about AI search optimization methods.

The place: The dialog happened on social media platforms the place Ray maintains important {industry} affect with over 129,000 followers, offering public steering that advantages the broader advertising and marketing neighborhood reasonably than remaining in personal communications.

Why: The inquiry addressed rising issues about search engine coverage compliance as advertising and marketing professionals experiment with new ways aimed toward enhancing visibility in AI-powered search outcomes and chatbot responses, with some practitioners claiming optimistic outcomes from serving completely different content material to bots regardless of conventional prohibitions in opposition to such practices.


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