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Practical Ecommerce Merchant

March 4, 2026

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AI Bots Don't Need Markdown Pages

Markdown is a lightweight, text-only language easily readable by both humans and machines. One of the newest search visibility tactics is to serve a Markdown version of web pages to generative AI bots.

Computer screen with code on it

The aim is to assist the bots in fetching the content by reducing crawl resources, thereby encouraging them to access the page.

I've seen isolated tests by search optimizers showing an increase in visits from AI bots after Markdown, although none translated into better visibility. A few off-the-shelf tools, such as Cloudflare's, make implementing Markdown easier.

Serving separate versions of a page to people and bots is not new. Called "cloaking," the tactic is long considered spam under Google's Search Central guidelines.

The AI scenario is different, however, because it's not an attempt to manipulate algorithms, but rather making it easier for bots to access and read a page.

That doesn't make the tactic effective, however. Think carefully before implementing it, for the following reasons.

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5 Content Marketing Ideas for April 2026

Our April topics for ecommerce marketers include Apple computers, burritos, Google Discover, beer, and zippers. Read article >

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In Africa, providing payment details online is a leap of faith. Consumers need proof of the product and company. Read article >

From the Archive: September 2015

The Case for Registering Online Shoppers

Many vocal online marketing experts discourage user registration on ecommerce sites. They argue that asking shoppers to register deters would-be customers... Read article >

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