A standard for how a site presents itself to search and AI
GSERP sets out how a site should present itself so that classic search, AI search, answer engines and Swomi's own search can find it, read it and cite it correctly. Every criterion is published with the exact test that checks it. Swomi runs GSERP.
GSERP in one picture
Your site
FindGroups ROBOTS, SITEMAP, LLMS, FILE, NOTFOUND, LIVE
- May this reader fetch the site, and where is the sitemap?
- Which pages are there?
- Does every address answer as it should?
- What is this page, and in what language?
- Is the page meant for search at all?
- Where next? Every link leads somewhere.
- Which address names this page?
- What is it, whose is it, and where does it sit?
- How should a link to it look?
Read the same way by
- Classic searchLists of results with links and snippets
- AI searchWritten answers drawn from indexed pages, with links
- Answer enginesAssistants that fetch a page when someone asks
- Swomi's own searchNot open yet
What GSERP is
A set of published criteria. Version 0.2 has 54 of them in 10 groups: 31 required, 20 advised, and 3 for information, which never fail. Each one states what it requires, why, the exact test that checks it, and what counts as pass, warn and fail.
A checker that applies them. The criteria are written from Swomi's checker, version 0.2.0. It tests a site's files before the site goes live, and the live site after. A site meets GSERP 0.2 when no required criterion fails. Advice never blocks.
A mark, granted and re-checked in public. A site that meets the standard will be able to show the GSERP mark, re-checked every month and withdrawn when the site stops meeting it. The free check, the marks and the register will live on swomi.ai. None of them is open yet.
What GSERP is not
- A promise of ranking, traffic or citation
- Engines decide what they show. Google, for one, says that meeting its requirements does not guarantee that a page is crawled, indexed or shown.[1] GSERP checks what a site controls.
- Made or endorsed by any search engine or AI provider
- GSERP is Swomi's. Engines and crawlers are named on this site only where a criterion needs their names, and only in plain text.
- A review of content, security, speed or accessibility
- Version 0.2 tests how a site presents itself, not what it says. Some of these are proposed for later versions.
- An ISO standard or an accredited certification
- It is Swomi's own standard, published so that anyone can read every test and repeat it. Where the rules come from says what that means.
The 10 groups, in the order the checker runs them
Each group gathers the criteria for one part of a site. The numbers are the sections of the standard.
- 4.1Configuration file
config:An optional file in the release that tells the checker which paths the site's application serves.1 criterion: 1 for information - 4.2Required files
file:Six files every release must have at its root.6 criteria: 6 required - 4.3robots.txt
robots:Who may read the site, its owner's choice about AI training, and where its sitemap is.6 criteria: 2 required, 3 advised, 1 for information - 4.4Sitemap
sitemap:The list of pages the site wants found, and nothing else.6 criteria: 5 required, 1 advised - 4.5Not-found page
404:The page served for an address that does not exist.1 criterion: 1 required - 4.6llms.txt
llms.txt:A short guide to the site for agents and answer engines.2 criteria: 2 advised - 4.7Each page
page:What every page says about itself in its head: language, title, description, canonical address, previews and icon.15 criteria: 7 required, 7 advised, 1 for information - 4.8Structured data
ld+json:Machine-readable statements of what the page is and who stands behind it.7 criteria: 3 required, 4 advised - 4.9Links
links:Links a crawler can follow, and that lead somewhere.2 criteria: 2 required - 4.10The live site
live:How the site answers on the internet once it is deployed, read only as its robots.txt allows.8 criteria: 5 required, 3 advised
From check to mark
- Check. Anyone runs the free check on swomi.ai, with no sign-up.
- Fix. The report gives each result by its criterion id, so every fix points to a published test.
- Meet the standard. No required criterion fails.
- Hold the mark. The person who runs the site takes the GSERP mark for it. It links to its own verification page on swomi.ai.
- Keep it. The site is re-checked every month. A failed re-check withdraws the mark.
The check is free. It is not open yet. The mark's final name will be published with version 1.0.
References
Numbered in the order they are first cited on this page; each entry links back to the places that cite it. Every source was opened on 5 November 2026.
- ↑ AI features and your website. Google Search Central, updated 10 December 2025.