OPEN STANDARDV1.0-ALPHAspec v1.0 · seomd.dev

SEO.MD

The open standard for AI Engine Optimization — a version-controlled, plain-text spec file that tells ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini exactly how to understand and cite your brand.

Like CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, but for SEO. Drop one file in your repo. Let AI engines do the rest.

READ THE SPEC →GET THE CLI ↗

QUICK START

ONE COMMAND TO START

# Install the CLI
npm install -g seomd-cli

# Scaffold your SEO.md
seomd init

# Check your citation status
seomd status

# Validate against the spec
seomd validate

The init command asks you five questions — your brand name, domain, site type, primary keyword, and top competitors — and generates a complete SEO.md tailored to your site type.

SUPPORTED SITE TYPES

SaaSBlogeCommerceMarketplaceLocal

HOW IT WORKS

THREE PHASES OF OPERATION

PHASE 01

FOUNDER DECLARES

You own your SEO strategy. Define your brand, keywords, intent queries, and target AI engines — in plain text, version controlled.

PHASE 02

PLATFORM WRITES BACK

Connect a platform provider like Foxcite to populate _analysis blocks with live citation rates, gap scores, and competitor intelligence.

PHASE 03

AI ENGINES READ IT

SEO.md tells crawlers, AI bots, and search engines exactly how to understand, cite, and rank your brand. No guesswork.

THE FORMAT

PLAIN TEXT. VERSION CONTROLLED.

An SEO.md file lives in your repo root. It has two parts: a YAML block you control, and _analysis blocks your platform writes back.

—No proprietary dashboards — just a file in your repo
—Works with any site: SaaS, blog, eCommerce, local
—Human-readable. AI-readable. Git-diffable.
—Platform-agnostic — connect any provider

# SEO.md
              
## My Brand

## Site
site:
  type: saas
  domain: mybrand.com
  canonical: https://mybrand.com

## Keywords
keywords:
  primary: "ai citation tracking"
  secondary:
    - "llm seo"
    - "aeo tools"

## AEO
aeo:
  answer_first_format: true
  allowed_bots:
    - GPTBot
    - ClaudeBot
    - PerplexityBot

  ### PLATFORM WRITES BACK
  _analysis:
    overall_citation_rate: 0.72
    overall_gap_score: 28
    last_analyzed: 2026-06-05

THE VALUE

OBJECTIVE BENEFITS

ELIMINATE INFERENCE

Traditional SEO relies on crawlers guessing what your site is about from HTML tags. SEO.md provides a deterministic, explicit manifesto directly to LLMs.

AI-NATIVE FORMAT

Websites are full of complex DOM trees and hydration scripts. Markdown is the native language of LLMs, giving agents exactly what they need, how they want it.

BRIDGE TEAMS

Move SEO out of abstract spreadsheets and into version control. When developers build a new page, marketing intent is already documented in the repository.

THE ECOSYSTEM