A guide for HubSpot sites
Six questions, answered from the sources that decide them: Google, Bing, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity and HubSpot's own documentation. Each answer ends with the steps on HubSpot.
Sources read on 24 September 2026, next review by 23 December 2026. Nothing here promises rankings or AI citations.
Put the answer in the HTML your server sends, describe it with structured data that matches what readers see, and decide which AI crawlers may read it. Then measure what the engines actually say, because none of this guarantees a citation.
Written for HubSpot's CMS by the team that builds HubSpot themes. Every HubSpot step was checked in a live HubSpot account.
AI features and your website ↗01 / Six questions
Each page answers one question, shows the steps on HubSpot and quotes the sources behind them.
Mostly the HTML your server sends. Several AI crawlers do not run JavaScript.
Read the answerWhat is visibly on the page, once and accurately. No special markup is needed for Google's AI features.
Read the answerDecide by purpose: training, search and fetches a person asks for. HubSpot's robots.txt setting does the rest.
Read the answerGoogle Search says it ignores the file. It can still be a map for agents; here is how to publish it.
Read the answerA source next to the claim, a name behind it, a date on it.
Read the answerAsk the same questions on a schedule and read trends, not single runs.
Read the answer02 / Common ground
Google, Bing and the AI companies disagree on a lot. On these four points they do not.
Bing's guidelines: "Important information is visible on the URL itself", and "Place essential information near the top of the URL".
Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
Bing's page carries no date; we read it on 24 September 2026. It covers Bing search, Copilot and Bing's grounding API.
Google: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary."
Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
A page has to be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet. The page was last updated on 10 December 2025.
Google: "Your structured data must be a true representation of the page content." Bing: "Markup must accurately reflect visible content."
Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
Google's guidelines were last updated on 10 July 2026. Bing's line is in section 14 of its guidelines.
Bing: "SEO does not guarantee rankings or traffic, and GEO does not guarantee grounding or citations in AI experiences."
Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
GEO is Bing's word for what this guide calls answer engine optimisation. We make no promise either.
Each card quotes the organisation that makes the rule, from its own page as it read on 24 September 2026.
03 / Words
The same words mean different things in different tools. In this guide they mean this.
A system that answers a question in its own words and may cite pages as its sources: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode.
A program that fetches pages for an AI company: to train a model, to build a search index, or because a person asked about the page.
Statements about a page in schema.org's vocabulary, usually JSON-LD in the HTML, that tell a machine what the page is and what it says.
An answer names your brand. It may or may not link to you.
An answer links to your page as a source for what it says.
04 / Before you start
What people ask us before they start.
Mostly it rests on the same foundation. Bing: "SEO best practices that support discovery, indexing accuracy, and content clarity also support eligibility for AI-generated experiences, grounding results, and citations." Google says its AI features need no special optimisation. What changes is emphasis: the answer up front, evidence on the page, and measuring mentions as well as clicks.
Bing Webmaster Guidelines ↗Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
Nobody can promise that, and we do not. Bing's own guidelines say GEO "does not guarantee grounding or citations in AI experiences". This guide makes your pages readable and attributable; whether an engine cites them depends on your content, your standing and the question asked.
Bing Webmaster Guidelines ↗Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
No. Every step here works on any HubSpot theme, by hand. A theme like Answerable does the page structure and the structured data for you and has them checked in public, which is the part most teams never get to.
Answerable's proof page ↗Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
Freelopers OÜ, a Tallinn company that builds HubSpot themes and modules. We checked every HubSpot step in a live HubSpot account and quote every rule from the organisation that makes it.
About Freelopers ↗Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
Every source was read on 24 September 2026. AI search changes quickly, so every page shows its review date and we re-read each source at least every 90 days.
Owned by Freelopers OÜ
Last reviewed 24 September 2026
05 / Where you are
Four ways on from here. Pick the one closest to where you are today.
A free HubSpot theme with the site graph and structured data built in, installed more than 1,900 times.
Do you need a site before you need answers?Get DeLight free
Answerable puts the answer first, attaches the evidence and publishes structured data that matches the page, checked in public.
Which of your pages answer a real question?See the proof page
Guard checks crawler access, structured data, speed and accessibility every week and tracks whether real AI answers mention you.
Does your brand appear when someone asks about your field?Run a free Guard audit
We build and fix HubSpot sites for answer engines: the pages, the data, the crawler rules and the measuring.
Would you rather spend the time on your content?Talk to us