GEO courseModule 3 of 10: Can AI Reach You?Lesson 3.4
Speed, Errors, Logins, Pop-ups and PDFs
Crawlers need your pages to load quickly and reliably, and the facts to be on the open page. Server errors, pages behind logins, full-page pop-ups, and facts that only exist in a PDF or an image all keep AI from reading what matters.
Why it matters
If AI can't see your fees, it quotes someone else's. Forms, PDFs and pop-ups hide exactly the facts people ask about.
The evidence
Evidence: Official guidance
Microsoft's and Google's guidance on keeping key facts in text. How each assistant handles a given PDF or slow page isn't published, so test your own.
Do this first
Open your fees and valuation pages in a private window on your phone, and note anything you can't read without a form or a click.
01What it is
A book kept in a locked cupboard, or a poster written on the inside of a closed door. If you can’t open it, you can’t read it, and neither can a robot.
Think of it like
A café menu in the window covered by a notice saying "ask inside for prices". Passers-by walk on to the café that shows them.
02Why it matters
To the people searching
People ask AI "what does a letting agent charge?" because they don't want to fill in a form to find out. If your answer is behind one, the AI answers with your competitor's figures.
buyers
Want EPC ratings, room sizes and tenure without downloading a PDF.
tenants
Want rent, deposit and fees without a form. Missing facts send them to the portals.
sellers
Want to know what selling costs. A fees gate lets another agent answer first.
landlords
Compare management fees quickly, and compare whoever publishes a figure.
To Google, Bing and AI
Evidence: Official guidanceA crawler can't log in, fill in your form or reliably click "accept" on a cookie wall. Microsoft's guidance for AI answers warns against key facts that live only in PDFs or images, or hidden in tabs, and says to keep core information in HTML. Errors matter too: in the Vercel study, about a third of ChatGPT's and Claude's crawler requests hit missing pages (against about 8% for Googlebot), a sign that AI crawlers often ask for old or guessed addresses. Google says page experience matters for its AI features too.
An agent example
A lettings agency's "landlord fees guide" is a PDF behind a form asking for name, email and phone. People ask AI what landlords pay and get other agencies' fees. The agency publishes a plain-text fees page, keeps the PDF as an optional download, and keeps a short form only for landlords who want a call.
03Your turn
Check yours, then fix it
- 1Open your fees, valuation and landlord pages in a private window on your phone.
- 2Note anything hidden behind a login, a form, a full-page pop-up or a cookie wall.
- 3Note any key fact that's only in a PDF, an image or a closed tab.
- 1Open Indexing, then Pages, and look for "Server error (5xx)", "Not found (404)" and "Soft 404".
- 2Open Settings, then Crawl stats, for your average response time.
- 1Run your homepage, a listing, your fees page and valuation page through PageSpeed Insights, on Mobile.
- 2Look at "Reduce initial server response time".
- 3Ask your host when your property feed imports run. Imports at 9am often cause errors at the busiest time.
- 1Paste a PDF's address into ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity.
- 2Ask: "Summarise this document and list the fees."
- 3Compare with the PDF. Missing or wrong figures mean the facts need to be on a web page.
- 1Fees, EPC rating, room sizes and tenure go in the page text. Keep PDFs as extras.
- 2Retype fees tables and infographics that are images as real text tables.
- 3Use accordions for detail, not for the key facts.
- 1Remove forms that hide information people need to read.
- 2Keep forms for valuations, viewings and call-backs.
- 3If you want to keep a gated download, gate only the nicely packaged version and publish the substance on the page.
- 1Use a small banner, not a full-page wall, and don't block content behind it.
- 2Delay or remove newsletter pop-ups on fees, valuation and landlord pages.
- 1Set up UptimeRobot's free plan on your homepage and valuation page.
- 2Send alerts to a phone someone actually reads.
- 3Ask your provider to move feed imports to the early hours.
Then: Re-run the phone test after changes, and ask an AI assistant "how much does [your agency] charge?" a week later to see if it can now answer.
04Keep it up
Check Search Console errors monthly. Review any new gated content or pop-up before it goes live.
That's lesson 3.4
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