The role of a company website is being redefined. In the past, it was more like a long-outdated digital business card; now it simultaneously handles two things: explaining to visitors who you are, what you do, and whether you are trustworthy; and providing AI Q&A engines with a source of facts that can be crawled, cited, and verified. CNNIC data shows that as of June 2025, China's generative AI user base reached 515 million people, an increase of 266 million in half a year, with a penetration rate of 36.5%. Among them, users who use it to answer questions are the most widespread, accounting for 80.9% (S1). When customers are accustomed to first asking Doubao, DeepSeek, Kimi, Yuanbao, or ChatGPT before deciding which supplier to look at, the technical foundation and content quality of a website directly determine whether a company appears in the answer.

1. Q&A engines are replacing part of the "search first, then click" path

AI summaries have changed click behavior. Based on browsing data from 900 U.S. adults in March 2025, Pew Research Center found that when AI summaries appeared in search results, the click-through rate on traditional result links was 8%, compared with 15% when there was no AI summary; while the click-through rate on cited sources within AI summaries was only 1% (Google disputes its methodology) (S3). The meaning of these numbers is not that "websites are useless," but that the way traffic is allocated has changed: some visitors complete their judgment on the results page, and only sources that are cited and trusted have the opportunity to receive subsequent clicks and inquiries.

At the same time, domestic AI products have a high degree of usage concentration. The 56th CNNIC report mentions products such as Doubao, DeepSeek, Yuanbao, and Kimi, with Doubao and DeepSeek having significantly higher user usage rates than other products (S2). Companies cannot control which engine users choose, but they can make their official websites into materials that these engines can easily read and easily cite.

2. AI answers will cite websites, but only if pages can be indexed and content is presented as text

Google Search Central clearly states that for a page to appear in the supporting links of AI Overviews / AI Mode, it must be indexed and meet search technical requirements, with no additional threshold; recommendations include allowing crawling, reasonable internal links, good page experience, providing important content in text form, structured data consistent with visible text, keeping business information updated, and no need for special AI files or special schema (S4).

These recommendations impose very specific practical requirements on companies: product parameters, service scope, qualifications, and contact information should be written in the HTML body text, rather than existing only in images, PDFs, or pop-ups that require multiple clicks to appear; structured data on the page must be consistent with the text users see, not one set of markup and another set of display. Many old websites fail precisely on these basics—content hidden in images, information not updated for years, broken mobile layouts—so AI cannot obtain usable facts when crawling, and naturally will not cite them.

3. The official website is the authoritative source of brand information and the source of facts in the AI era

Generative engines need verifiable sources when organizing answers. In its optimization guide for generative AI features, Google points out that unique first-hand experience content is more likely than paraphrasing others' "generic content" to have a long-term impact on presentation in generative AI search, and that one should not merely restate content already available online (S5). This aligns closely with the positioning of an official website: a company's own delivery process, industry experience, and ways of handling common problems can only be clearly written first-hand by the company itself.

Conversely, if the official website is not updated for a long time, information about the company on platforms will become the main material for AI—that information may be outdated, incomplete, or even from third-party paraphrase. One of the core actions of upgrading a website is to build the official website into the single externally facing, continuously maintained source of facts: company information, product capabilities, service boundaries, and contact information should all be based on the official website and kept consistent everywhere.

4. Structuring and textualization: making content "citable"

The concept of "Generative Engine Optimization" (GEO) proposed by Aggarwal et al. at KDD 2024 experimentally tested the impact of several content-writing methods on visibility in generative engine answers. Methods such as adding cited sources, quotations, and statistics can improve visibility, with the paper reporting up to about 40% (S6). This research addresses the citation mechanism of generative engines and cannot simply be equated with the ranking rules of domestic products, but the direction is worth referencing: content with sources, specific data, and clear statements is easier to extract than vague promotional language.

Applied to website upgrades, this means three things: write key conclusions as complete sentences rather than piling up keywords; annotate sources for data and viewpoints; and organize content with clear heading levels and paragraphs so that both machines and people can locate information quickly. Structured data should be consistent with this visible content, not written as a separate set.

5. Mobile, speed, and security: the common baseline for AI crawling and visitor judgment

Google lists "good page experience" as one of the recommendations for appearing in supporting links for AI features (S4). Page experience includes basics such as mobile usability, loading speed, and HTTPS. These are not new topics, but their weight is more practical in AI scenarios: crawlers and real visitors face the same set of pages, and if mobile pages cannot open, load too slowly, or lack certificates, both indexing and trust are lost at the same time.

The same applies to security. HTTPS is the default configuration for current websites, and its absence directly affects browser prompts and visitor judgment. When upgrading a website, mobile adaptation, performance optimization, certificates, and basic security configuration should be treated as acceptance items, not added after launch.

6. Owned channels and platform channels: the official website is the only fully controllable position

Platform accounts can bring exposure, but the rules, ranking, and display formats are determined by the platform, and companies cannot guarantee in what form information will appear. The official website is a company's own channel; how content is organized, what is updated, and which historical materials are retained are decided by the company itself. In the context of widespread use of AI Q&A engines, the value of owned channels lies in this: it is a stable source that companies can continuously maintain, align with structured data, and have crawled and cited. Platform content can serve as a supplement, but it should not replace the official website in playing the role of "source of facts."

Where to start

An upgrade does not have to be completed all at once. You can first self-check against the list below, then decide the scope of renovation:

  1. Crawlability: Check whether the robots configuration mistakenly blocks search engines; confirm that core pages can be indexed normally.
  2. Textualization: Whether product parameters, service descriptions, and qualification information are presented as body text rather than existing only in images or attachments.
  3. Structured consistency: Whether the page's structured data is consistent with visible text; whether company name, address, and contact information are consistent everywhere.
  4. Content uniqueness: Whether there is first-hand experience content (delivery process, problem handling, industry practice), rather than restating generic introductions.
  5. Sources and data: Whether key conclusions have sources and specific data support.
  6. Page experience: Whether mobile layout, loading speed, and HTTPS meet standards.
  7. Information timeliness: Whether business information, product lines, and contact information are kept updated.
  8. Channel division of labor: Clarify that the official website is the source of facts, and that platform content is consistent with official website information.

If the existing site fails on multiple items above, rebuilding is often less troublesome than patching item by item. KingCMS X1 is available free of charge and can be used to build a website that meets the above requirements. For details, see /products/x1.

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