Building Websites Readable by Both Humans and AIs

The web is no longer read only by humans. AI assistants and agents have joined search engines. So what makes a website "readable" for both audiences?

1. Semantic HTML

Using meaningful tags like <article>, <nav>, and <time> instead of piles of <div>s describes your content's structure to machines for free. This very site is built on that principle.

2. Structured data (JSON-LD)

JSON-LD blocks written with the Schema.org vocabulary state unambiguously whether a page is an article, a product, or a person's profile.

3. llms.txt

The AI-era sibling of robots.txt: a plain text file that summarizes what your site is about and its important pages for AI models.

4. Speed and simplicity

Statically generated pages that aren't drowning in JavaScript remain the fastest and most reliable option for humans and browsing agents alike.

---

I'll dive deeper into each of these topics in upcoming posts.