Technical setup for search and AI retrieval
For $1,299 one-time, we check and configure one site's crawler access, page rendering, structured data and analytics. We implement changes where access allows or give your developers exact tickets, then validate the live pages. The project takes 10 to 14 business days; citations are never promised.
No guarantees. Directional measurement. Disclosed methods.
Pricing and scope
$1,299 one-time
One site at this price; the page list, templates and subdomains are set in the written scope after we review your site. Larger or multi-site setups are quoted in writing.
Timing and billing
10 to 14 business days from kickoff, once access is open.
Invoiced in full on booking; work starts when payment lands. Larger scope is quoted in writing and invoiced in full on booking as well. No setup fee.
What the engagement covers
- One site: the main domain and subdomains with useful content.
- An access audit of the key pages agreed at kickoff.
- Crawler permissions for each provider, implemented in robots.txt and your firewall or CDN.
- Page rendering checked against raw HTML, browser output, crawler fetches and server logs.
- Structured data for each template using consistent Organization values, validated on sample pages.
- llms.txt and llms-full.txt reviewed, and built if you want an editorial index.
- Measurement setup in GA4, Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Validation after deployment and a written handover.
Set in your written scope
We agree the following after reviewing your site and presence, before work starts.
- The page list the access audit runs on and the subdomains in scope.
- The templates that receive structured data and the type each one takes.
- Each provider's three crawler decisions (search, user fetch, training), signed off by you.
- Whether llms.txt and llms-full.txt are built and how they are regenerated.
- Whether changes ship in your CMS and CDN or as tickets for your developers.
Not included: Core Web Vitals or performance engineering. Migrations, redesigns, headless or custom-application builds. Content rewrites and answer-first restructuring (that is the content audit inside GEO). See the full exclusions list
Terms, clearly stated
- Third-party costs
- The fee covers our work. Tools, any Reddit ads and any placement spend are billed at cost or paid by you directly.
- You keep
- You keep every report, page, schema, dataset and account we build, whether or not you continue.
- Changes
- Late payment on a later month pauses work after a seven-day grace period. Scope changes by written change order.
Prices current as of September 2026. USD list prices. EUR invoicing available at a rate fixed per contract.
Is this the right fit?
A good fit if
- Live sites whose crawler access, rendering and structured data have never been checked against what each provider publishes.
- Teams about to start a content or GEO program who want the technical base settled first.
- Sites behind a WAF or CDN where the bot rules were never written per provider.
- Marketing teams whose developers will apply exact tickets but have no retrieval specification to work from.
- Brands that want GA4, Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools measuring a baseline before any directional reporting starts.
Not a fit if
- Pre-launch sites with no pages to audit.
- Sites mid-migration or mid-redesign; run the setup after the new site lands.
- Teams that want a performance or Core Web Vitals project.
- Buyers seeking the cheapest option or a promised outcome.
We document the work and compare repeated observations. AI answers vary; results are directional and never guaranteed. Read how we measure.
How the project runs
- 01
Audit and decide
business days 1 to 4
We check how crawlers reach and read your site, agree on access rules and address the first technical issues.
Deliverables and measurement
- 02
Implement
business days 5 to 10
We configure structured data and measurement, and implement changes or prepare exact tickets for your developers.
Deliverables and measurement
- 03
Validate and hand over
business days 10 to 14
We check the production pages and hand over the decisions, maintenance instructions and measurement baseline.
Deliverables and measurement
What you receive
- Validation report
- Handover notes
- Measurement baseline
What we look for: Reachable pages are a precondition, not a result; any effect on citations is directional and is measured in a program, never promised here.
Activities
How the time is spent
Day 1
Kickoff and access confirmed
Week one
Quick wins shipped
Day 10
Implementation complete
Day 14
Validation and handover
Explore the work in detail
Expand an activity to see the method behind it. The final scope is agreed for your business before work begins.
001Audit access to key pages
Access audit of the important pages: HTTP status, redirects, robots.txt, noindex, nosnippet and data-nosnippet directives, canonical, server-rendered main content, paywall or login, WAF, CDN and bot management, geoblocking, desktop and mobile consistency, sitemap presence; run on the main domain and the useful subdomains, because a robots.txt applies only to the host it is published on.
002Agree on crawler permissions
Crawler access written up as three separate decisions per provider (search access, user-triggered fetch, training use) for OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity and Google, with the official documentation checked before each implementation.
003Configure robots.txt rules
robots.txt updated with validated agents only, never a generic template and never a deprecated agent added out of habit; group precedence, wildcards and CDN rules verified.
004Configure verified crawler access
WAF and CDN allowlisting built from the IP ranges each provider publishes, paired with user-agent where the documentation recommends it, with a routine to re-fetch the official JSON files rather than a copied list.
005Check rendered page content
HTML and rendering check on title and H1, main text, internal links, price, availability and specifications where they apply, author and date, canonical and structured data, and nothing critical injected only after interaction.
006Compare rendering and crawler evidence
Four-way comparison of the raw HTML, the browser rendering, a fetch using the official agents or IP ranges, and the server logs.
007Standardize your core brand facts
Canonical values fixed: the Organization object with legal name, URL and logo, plus the short list of facts allowed to appear anywhere on the site, reused in every block.
008Specify structured data by template
Structured data specified per template: BlogPosting for articles, TechArticle for technical explainers and how-tos, plain Article with mentions for comparison pages and vendor lists, FAQPage only where a real question and answer section exists, BreadcrumbList on every template.
009Validate structured data samples
Validation on one sample page per template with the Schema.org validator for syntax and the Rich Results Test where Google eligibility matters.
010Review optional llms.txt files
llms.txt and llms-full.txt checked for existence and accuracy, then built where you want a readable editorial index: HTTP 200 in text/plain, canonical pages only, no claim that is not on the site, dated and cross-linked.
011Set up analytics and indexing
Measurement setup: the native GA4 AI Assistant channel verified, a custom group only for sources it does not recognize, Search Console domain property with sitemaps submitted, Bing Webmaster Tools verified with IndexNow where the CMS and workflow justify it, baseline reports archived.
012Apply initial technical fixes
Week-one quick wins while the rest is specified: robots.txt upgrade, security.txt under /.well-known/, canonical audit on the top pages, Open Graph and Twitter Cards audit.
013Implement changes or prepare tickets
Changes implemented in your CMS, CDN and WAF where access allows, otherwise delivered as an exact ticket per template for your developers.
014Validate the live changes
Post-deploy validation: production URLs re-fetched, status and main content confirmed, structured data inspected, server logs checked after the WAF change, verification dates recorded.
015Hand over decisions and documentation
Handover: written notes carrying every crawler decision, the agent and IP-range refresh routine, the per-template schema spec and the measurement baseline.
What is not included
- Core Web Vitals or performance engineering.
- Migrations, redesigns, headless or custom-application builds.
- Content rewrites and answer-first restructuring (that is the content audit inside GEO).
- Entity profile standardization across third-party platforms (GEO).
- Ongoing schema checks, crawler access verification and IndexNow submission after each publication (GEO technical maintenance).
- Hosting, CDN or WAF plan upgrades and their fees.
What changes the price
- Several sites, or country and language subdomains with their own robots.txt and templates.
- Several CMSs or a large template set.
- Custom WAF logic spread across more than one CDN.
- An llms-full.txt corpus that needs a CMS API script on a large site.
- Code changes in a custom codebase rather than CMS and CDN configuration.
- Larger or multi-site setups are quoted after the site review as one written number and invoiced in full on booking like the one-site price; no split payment.
$1,299 one-time is the listed price. A larger scope is quoted in writing before work starts, never billed after the fact.
Larger site? Request a quoteWhat Technical Setup does not do
- It does not promise indexation, retrieval or citation, because an allowed crawler is a precondition for those and not a result.
- It does not replace your robots.txt with a generic template or add deprecated agents out of habit.
- It does not allowlist on user-agent names alone, since a name can be forged, so rules use the IP ranges each provider publishes.
- It does not conclude that a site is invisible to AI from a single command-line fetch, because the WAF, the location, the headers and the type of fetch all change the response.
- It does not put TechArticle or FAQPage on every page, since each template gets the type the page actually is.
- It does not sell llms.txt as a citation driver, and never weights it heavily.
- It does not approximate a structured-data value or mark up a fact that is not visible or verifiable on the page.
- It does not report AI traffic with a hidden multiplier, so visible sessions stay a floor.
How the pieces fit
- 00 / Start here
AI Visibility Audit
See how AI assistants describe your brand today.
- Ongoing
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Build the sources and signals AI answers draw from.
- Community
Reddit Marketing
Be present where buyers ask for recommendations.
- Foundation
Technical Setup
Make the site reachable and readable for crawlers and AI retrieval.
Each can be bought alone.
What the work looks like
Repeated observation on a frozen prompt set, read against a peer set, reported as directional.
More on Technical Setup
- Further reading
- More walkthroughs
Every walkthrough names the scope, the method and the timeframe rather than a multiple.
Technical Setup pricing and engagement FAQ
How much does Technical Setup cost and what is included?
$1,299 one-time for one site: the access audit, the crawler decisions and the rules that implement them, the rendering check, per-template structured data, measurement setup, post-deploy validation and a written handover. The fee is invoiced in full on booking and the work starts when the payment lands. There is no setup fee and no split payment.
How long does it take?
10 to 14 business days from payment, provided CMS editor access, Search Console and GA4 are open on day one. A delay in access moves the dates, not the scope. Larger or multi-site setups carry their own timeline in the written quote.
Who does the work, and do you implement or hand over tickets?
A Ranketize consultant runs the audit and writes every crawler rule, schema spec and measurement setting. Changes ship in your CMS, CDN and WAF where access allows; where it does not, you get an exact ticket per template that your developers apply and we validate on the live page.
Why $1,299 and not less?
The price is a floor for a fixed method on one site. The same steps run whether the site is small or large: the access audit, the crawler decisions per provider, the four-way rendering comparison, the per-template structured data and the measurement baseline. What grows with the site is the page list, the template set and the WAF work, which is why larger setups are quoted after the site review.
Is the $699 audit fee credited toward Technical Setup?
No. The credit applies only to month 1 of GEO or Reddit Marketing, within 60 days of the readout. The audit is not required first, but when one exists its site readiness findings become the starting page list here.
What is billed outside the fee?
Tools, hosting, and CDN or WAF plan tiers stay on your accounts, and your developers' time counts when changes ship as tickets rather than in your CMS. The fee covers our work: the audit, the decisions, the specs, the implementation where access allows, the validation and the handover.
Do you promise that AI assistants will cite the site after setup?
No. Setup removes technical blocks and makes pages identifiable, and an allowed crawler is a precondition for citation rather than a result. Whether an engine retrieves a page or names the brand is measured over repeated prompt runs inside a program and reported directionally.
Who is Technical Setup not for?
Pre-launch sites with no pages to audit, sites mid-migration or mid-redesign, and teams who want a performance or Core Web Vitals project. It is also not for buyers seeking the cheapest option or a promised outcome. When a redesign is in flight, the setup is likely worth more once the new site lands.
Does llms.txt matter?
It is an emerging convention that no major engine documents as a general citation lever. We check what you have, fix factual inconsistencies first, and build the files when you want a maintainable editorial index. When developer time is short, the order of value is likely structured data first, then llms.txt, then the content hub, then llms-full.txt.
Start with a clear scope
- 01
Send your website through the form, or book a 30-minute fit call. We review your site and presence and confirm fit within one business day.
- 02
A 30-minute fit call, then a written scope with the volumes for your case and the invoice within two business days.
- 03
Work starts when payment lands; kickoff within five business days.
What is Ranketize? - AI visibility & brand-trust consultancy for SaaS brands
What is Ranketize?
Ranketize is an AI visibility and brand trust consultancy focused on helping SaaS and digital brands become more likely to be referenced in AI-generated answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) through ethical, observational methods.
We work with teams that need clear, ethical execution and directional measurement across AI answers, not guaranteed rankings.
What we do
- • Run AI visibility audits across priority prompts and models
- • Improve entity consistency across owned and third-party sources
- • Build credible signals through content and community channels
Who it's for / not for
- • For: SaaS and digital brands with traction and clear ICPs
- • For: Teams that want measurable, transparent AI visibility work
- • Not for: pre-product brands or teams expecting guaranteed outcomes
How we measure
We use repeated prompt testing, source checks, and trend-based directional reporting with methodology notes.