AI Search Audit
TL;DR
Shipped this week: items #33 (Claude-SearchBot + Claude-Web allow lines in robots.txt, PR #96) and #34 (structured 5–7 item list block on every condition page, PR #97) — both 2026-06-03. PR #98 (2026-06-05) also refreshed Min Jin's profile and the Acupuncture service page: Min is now titled 'Acupuncturist & Massage Therapist' site-wide, qualifications restructured to a bulleted list, special interests refocused on women's health (PCOS, endometriosis, dysmenorrhoea) and post-cancer supportive care (nausea, fatigue, chronic pain, peripheral neuropathy), plus broken practitioner links and qualifications fixed in llms.txt / llms-full.txt. Backlog after this run: 8 items pending (#12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #25, #32, #35).
Search visibility: 30 queries re-checked against live SERPs on 2026-06-05. NOTABLE REGRESSION: meridianosteopathy.co.nz dropped from non-aggregator #3 → not in top 10 for 'osteopath vs physiotherapist christchurch' (≥5 spot shift). The Ahrefs week-of-2026-05 study showed only 54.5% URL overlap between consecutive AI Overview responses, so this may reflect SERP volatility rather than structural ranking loss — monitor next run before concluding. Three first-time checks for queries added last run (rotator cuff osteopath christchurch, postnatal osteopath christchurch, chiropractor vs osteopath christchurch) — all absent from top 10. Chiropractor-vs-osteopath shows Better Health holds /resources/osteopath-vs-chiropractor/ at #1, same dedicated-comparison-URL pattern as Halswell's osteopath-vs-physio-vs-chiro post. NOTABLE POSITIVE: 'paediatric osteopath christchurch' AI summary now names Nina Hu directly with her @meridianosteopathy.co.nz email and 02108655151 phone — the entity-attribution layer is working even though our URL doesn't rank (the link is via happyspine.co.nz/nina-hu at SERP position 7). Four queries pruned this run (osteopath hillmorton, tmj osteopath christchurch, acupuncture for ivf christchurch, cranial osteopath christchurch — all below priority 20 for three consecutive runs). Five new derived queries added: 'acupuncture for endometriosis christchurch', 'acupuncture for pcos christchurch', 'acupuncture for cancer christchurch' (all three test Min Jin's new clinical-interest content from PR #98), 'headaches osteopath christchurch' (splits intent from migraines combo), and 'post concussion syndrome christchurch' (natural variant of post-concussion). Standard -10 decay applied across all 30 queries below top 10. Pool size 45/50.
Industry signals (week of 2026-05-29 → 2026-06-05): (1) **Google Search Console launched a Generative AI performance report on 2026-06-03** — tracks impressions for AI Overviews and AI Mode by pages, countries, devices and dates at hourly through monthly granularity; opt-out toggle effective 2026-06-17. This is the first time we can directly measure AI-surface impressions for meridianosteopathy.co.nz — drives NEW item #35 (verify GSC account access and enable the report before the opt-out toggle goes live). (2) Ahrefs published a schema-impact study covering 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD between Aug 2025–Mar 2026 vs 4,000 controls — adding schema produced NO major uplift in citations on Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, or ChatGPT. Counterweight to schema-heavy advice: entity authority + content depth/freshness do the work, not schema markup. Reinforces #14 (blog) and tells us NOT to keep adding schema for its own sake; our existing MedicalClinic / MedicalCondition / Physician / Service / FAQPage / ReserveAction graph is sufficient. (3) SE Ranking 100,000-keyword study on the Gemini 3 AI Overview update (rolled default 2026-01-27): 42% of previously cited AIO domains have been replaced; each AIO now pulls 32% more sources per response; 88% of AIOs now cite three or more sources, only 1% cite a single source. Citation overlap with the organic top-10 collapsed from 76% (Jul-2025) to 17–38% — a citable rank-anywhere page is still the right strategy. (4) Conductor / CMSWire week-of-2026-05 data: Reddit citation share on Perplexity stabilising at 46.5%; ~5% on ChatGPT. Reinforces #15. (5) Local SEO update (week of 2026-05-29): reviews older than 18 months 'carry diminishing weight' for AI citation confidence — content and signals updated within the past two months earn 28% more AI citations than older material. Reinforces #16. Tier 1 → #35 (enable GSC Gen AI report). Tier 2 → #12, #13, #25, #32. Tier 3 → #14, #15, #16.
Already implemented
- llms.txt and llms-full.txt auto-generated from site data
- Explicit AI-crawler allow-list in robots.txt (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot-Extended, CCBot, anthropic-ai)
- MedicalClinic + MedicalBusiness JSON-LD in base template with address, hours, priceRange, offer catalog
- FAQPage JSON-LD on the homepage
- Canonical URLs, OpenGraph, Twitter Card tags on every page
- Auto-generated sitemap with lastmod
- AggregateRating + Review schema (ratingValue 4.9, reviewCount 65, three real testimonials) nested under MedicalBusiness
- Physician JSON-LD per team profile with sameAs to professional registers and visible 'Registered with …' block
- Per-service MedicalTherapy / Service schema with provider, areaServed, hasOfferCatalog of specialties, and mainEntityOfPage
- FAQPage JSON-LD on every service page (driven by faq arrays in services.json)
- BreadcrumbList JSON-LD + visible breadcrumb strip on non-home pages
- Visible 'Last updated' block on service and team pages, with dateModified in WebPage schema
- sameAs block on clinic JSON-LD (Google Business Profile etc.)
- Expanded llms.txt — Conditions-treated, Pricing-&-ACC, Common-questions sections
- Homepage H1 reframed to 'Osteopathy, Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine in Christchurch'; practitioners section demoted to H2
- /conditions/sciatica/, /conditions/headaches-migraines/, /conditions/pregnancy-back-pain/, /conditions/sports-injury-recovery/ — four condition Q→A pages with MedicalCondition + FAQPage schema, plus a What We Treat nav dropdown
- ProfilePage + MedicalWebPage @graph schema on every team profile (alongside the Physician node), so each practitioner URL is its own retrievable AI-search entity
- Hero subtitle and practitioners intro reframed to evidence-informed language (no longer says "holistic"); each line is now distinct rather than restating the H1
- "Serving Hillmorton, Halswell, Hoon Hay, Cashmere, Addington, Riccarton, Sydenham, Wigram & surrounding Christchurch suburbs" — site-wide footer block + extended llms.txt Area-served line
- Treats: chips on every team profile (in a What I Treat card), with Nina's row carrying a clickable pink-tinted pill linking to the new fertility page
- /services/acupuncture/fertility/ sub-page — MedicalTherapy schema linking to the parent acupuncture #service, FAQPage on IVF timing / ACC status / Nina's credentials, hero + 3 specialty images
- Site-wide sweep removing 'GP referral' from patient-facing copy (per the CLAUDE.md copy rule); condition CTA banners simplified to heading + booking button only
- Google Business Profile services audit completed manually (item #21) — owner added Osteopathy, Medical acupuncture, Dry needling, Neck pain treatment, Headache & migraine treatment, Sports injury treatment, Pregnancy back pain, Paediatric osteopathy, Herbal medicine to GBP service list
- /conditions/neck-pain/ — Q→A page with MedicalCondition + FAQPage schema, mirroring the four item-#10 pages; covers acute vs chronic, when to seek urgent care, ACC eligibility, links back to the osteopathy service (item #22, PR #63)
- /conditions/back-pain/ — Q→A page with MedicalCondition + FAQPage schema; covers acute vs chronic, sciatica overlap, when to seek urgent care, ACC eligibility, links to /conditions/sciatica/ and the osteopathy service (item #23, PR #64)
- + the same for /llms-full.txt added in the HTML head — signals AI crawlers that a Markdown summary exists alongside the HTML (item #26, PR #62)
- Physician schema upgraded to Schema.org v30 IndividualPhysician on every team profile, with practicesAt: { @id: '#clinic' } linking each practitioner to the MedicalClinic node — sharpens entity disambiguation for ChatGPT / Perplexity / AI Overviews (item #27, PR #65)
- Image alt text rewritten descriptive-not-titular across team profiles (team-profile.njk now uses member.photoAlt with name fallback), condition pages, and service pages — each
now describes what's visible plus relevant clinical context. Closes G14 (item #28, PR #70 / bundled in #71)
- Hillmorton + Wigram + Addington + Halswell + Cashmere now appear in flowing intro copy on every service page in services.json (osteopathy, acupuncture, herbal medicine), not just the site-wide footer line. Closes G22 (item #29, PR #68 / bundled in #71)
- 'Conditions we commonly treat' block added to the osteopathy service page linking all six condition pages (back-pain, neck-pain, sciatica, headaches-migraines, pregnancy-back-pain, sports-injury-recovery), plus a matching 'Common conditions we treat' section on the homepage with high-intent button links — gives the condition pages an internal-link surface beyond the nav dropdown so Google can pass relevance signals to them. Closes G23 (item #30, PR #69 / bundled in #71)
- /book/ page made AI-citable — added ReserveAction schema and visible intro content so ChatGPT / Perplexity / Gemini can recommend it as a booking action, not just an interstitial. Especially relevant after Perplexity Health launched 2026-03-19 with EHR integration, since AI assistants are increasingly handling the appointment-booking step (PR #72)
- Explicit www → apex 301 redirects added in netlify.toml — Google now consolidates link equity onto the canonical meridianosteopathy.co.nz apex domain rather than splitting it between www and apex variants (PR #73)
- /services/medical-acupuncture/ renamed to 'Acupuncture & Dry Needling' across nav, homepage card, JSON-LD, breadcrumbs and inter-service cards; Min Jin positioned as TCM lead and Nina Hu as Western medical acupuncture / dry needling lead; new FAQ entries on acupuncture-vs-dry-needling, which practitioner to book, and what to expect at a first dry-needling session. Implementation diverged from the original spec (which had been a separate /services/acupuncture/dry-needling/ sub-page) — the rename achieves the same G16 goal of one indexable URL targeting Western dry-needling intent, without splitting authority across two pages. Closes G16 (item #17, PR #78)
- Every condition page (back-pain, neck-pain, sciatica, headaches-migraines, pregnancy-back-pain, sports-injury-recovery) and every service page (osteopathy, acupuncture, herbal-medicine) now opens with a 40–60 word citation-ready direct answer in the 'X treatment at Meridian Osteopathy in Christchurch …' format, followed by the existing evidence-informed prose as the second paragraph onward. The answer-leading sentence also becomes the first sentence of the MedicalCondition / Service JSON-LD description field, so it propagates to AI-citation crawlers. Closes G24 (item #31, PR #77)
- Per-practitioner booking pages added — each practitioner now has their own /book/
/ URL with Cliniko pre-targeted to their calendar (no more landing on the generic 'select a practitioner' page after a homepage card click); homepage practitioner cards repointed at the matching per-practitioner /book/ page. Reduces clicks from 'pick a practitioner' to 'pick a time' from 3 to 1 (PRs #80, #81) - Min Jin's ACC eligibility correctly distinguished from Nina Hu's across acupuncture pages and per-practitioner booking pages — Nina is an ACC-registered osteopath who lodges claims in clinic and integrates dry needling within ACC-subsidised consultations; Min is registered to treat as an ACC acupuncture provider but does not lodge new claims herself. Wording on /book/min-jin/ adjusted accordingly (PR #82)
- Kaylee Frost team photo updated, colour-corrected, and optimised across multiple iterations (PRs #86, #88, #90, #93)
- /admin Decap CMS coverage gaps filled — all editable content blocks on the live site now have corresponding CMS controls so the clinic can self-serve copy updates without code changes (PR #91)
- Claude-SearchBot + Claude-Web added as explicit allow lines in src/robots.txt alongside the existing ClaudeBot / anthropic-ai entries — safeguards Claude.ai live-retrieval citation traffic against any future Disallow line we add. Item #33, PR #96 (2026-06-03)
- Structured 5–7 item list blocks added to every condition page (back-pain, neck-pain, sciatica, headaches-migraines, pregnancy-back-pain, sports-injury-recovery) — three
- sections under their own H2s per page ('Common signs', 'When to see an osteopath', 'What to expect at your first appointment'), sourced from a new `lists` array on each condition in conditions.json so future edits stay in data not markup. Search Engine Land's May 2026 analysis of 25k AI-cited URLs found list-formatted pages cited at materially higher rates than equivalent prose. Item #34, PR #97 (2026-06-03)
- Min Jin's profile and the Acupuncture service page restructured: Min now titled 'Acupuncturist & Massage Therapist' site-wide; qualifications reformatted to a bulleted list; About Me trimmed; special interests refocused on women's health (PCOS, endometriosis, dysmenorrhoea) and post-cancer supportive care (nausea & vomiting, fatigue, chronic pain, peripheral neuropathy); What I Treat refreshed; Acupuncture page reflects Min's new focus + massage-therapist role; broken practitioner links fixed in llms.txt / llms-full.txt with flattened qualifications and an enriched meta/OG description (PR #98, 2026-06-05)
Gaps (reference)
Background context. The action buttons live on the Punch-list below — each punch-list item addresses one or more of these gaps.
G7. No ACC landing page
Neck-pain and back-pain condition pages now ship (items #22, #23 closed). The remaining piece of G7 is a single indexable /acc/ URL — osteo.co.nz still owns 'osteopath acc christchurch' and we have ACC mentions scattered across the site but no canonical landing. Reinforced 2026-06-05: thehouseofacupuncture.co.nz/our-services/acc-acupuncture-chistchurch still owns 'acupuncture acc christchurch' for the same structural reason. Scoped under item #25.
G8. No blog / editorial content
Freshness cliff at ~3 months. April-2026 industry data: 76.4% of ChatGPT's top-cited pages were updated within 30 days, 50% of Perplexity citations come from content less than 13 weeks old. osteopath-christchurch.com is winning headache/migraine/cranial/baby-osteo queries on blog-post velocity — 1 short post per condition is enough to claim those niches. MK Osteopathy is doing the same for TMJ. May-2026 BrightEdge / Healthcare Success data confirms the pattern is hardening: AI Overviews now trigger on 88% of healthcare queries (up from 72% in 2024), with cited brands earning 35% more clicks and AI visitors converting 4.4× higher than organic. Reinforced 2026-06-05 by Ahrefs schema study (1,885 pages adding JSON-LD vs 4,000 controls, Aug 2025–Mar 2026): adding schema produced NO major uplift in AI citations on any platform — entity authority + content depth/freshness do the work, not schema markup. Local SEO data this week: content updated within the past two months earns 28% more AI citations than older material. The case for blog freshness is now the strongest it has been since the audit started.
G15. No off-site citation strategy
Reddit appears in 46.5% of Perplexity citations (stable as of week of 2026-05-29) and ~5% of ChatGPT citations. Reddit is the second most visible website in Google search results in 2026 (only Wikipedia ahead) and is now the most-cited social domain across AI models. Tinuiti Q1 2026 data: social-media share of AI citations climbed past 9% Oct-2025 → Jan-2026, with Reddit accounting for the dominant share of that growth across nine product categories. ClaudeBot crawl volume grew 800% at the start of 2026 as Anthropic scaled its web search API — Reddit citations are increasingly the path into Claude's answers too, not just Perplexity's. Item #15 still applies.
Search visibility
What real users type into Google and ChatGPT — and where Meridian ranks for each. Pool self-expands via Google autocomplete on Saturdays. Last checked 2026-06-05.