With AI-driven search continuing to reshape how information is discovered and surfaced, there’s growing focus on how to make websites and web content more AI-friendly. One of the more recent discussions we’ve been observing centres on the value of serving website content as Markdown specifically for AI crawlers.

The argument goes something like this: AI systems prefer clean, structured content. Markdown is simpler than HTML. Therefore, if you make Markdown versions of your pages available to AI bots, you’ll be more discoverable, more quotable, and more likely to appear in AI-generated answers.

It’s an interesting theory. But as with many early AI trends, the important question isn’t “can we do this?” It’s “should we?”

Where the conversation on Markdown and AI crawlers comes from

Although giving AI crawlers Markdown to work with instead of standard HTML has implications rooted firmly in SEO, much of the discussion and practical experimentation is currently happening in the web development space.

Drupal founder Dries Buytaert, for example, recently published a blog post outlining his experience testing what would happen if AI crawlers were offered a cleaner version of his existing content.

His site already stored blog posts in Markdown, but served them to visitors (human and machine alike) as rendered HTML. The experiment involved making that underlying Markdown directly available to crawlers, either via a .md URL or through content negotiation, and then signalling its existence using an “alternate” link in the HTML.

What surprised him was how quickly AI crawlers reacted. Within hours, tools such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot detected the alternate Markdown version and began requesting it in large volumes.

That rapid uptake sparked wider interest, not because it demonstrated a clear benefit, but because it highlighted how actively AI systems explore new ways of consuming content, and how quickly they respond when something new is exposed.

Related – Robots.txt, Ai crawlers, and what (if anything) you should be doing about it

Does Markdown actually help AI understand your content?

In theory, Markdown is easier to parse than HTML. There’s no navigation, no layout elements, no wrapper divs… just headings, paragraphs, lists and links.

However, modern search engines and AI systems are already very good at extracting meaning from HTML. Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have spent years building systems that:

• Strip boilerplate and navigation automatically
• Identify main content blocks
• Preserve headings, hierarchy and context
• Reduce token usage by removing irrelevant markup

In other words, the “problem” Markdown claims to solve is largely already solved, at least by the more sophisticated platforms that matter most.

Serving raw content may help simpler or less capable AI tools, but there’s little evidence (so far) that it improves:

• Indexing speed
• Discoverability
• Authority signals
• Citations in AI-generated answers

Structure still matters — but not in the way the hype suggests

One important point often gets lost in this debate. AI systems don’t just want clean content; they want contextual content.

That context usually comes from:

• Semantic HTML
• Clear heading structures
• Internal linking
• Schema markup
• Supporting signals of expertise and authority

These elements help AI systems determine what a page is about, how trustworthy it is, and how it relates to other information. Stripping everything down to raw Markdown doesn’t inherently improve any of that and, in some cases, it may remove useful signals altogether.

It’s telling that search engines and standards bodies continue to recommend:

• Well-structured HTML for public-facing content
• Schema.org markup for clarity and meaning
• Hierarchical page layouts for understanding

Learn more about what still matters in SEO in our guide.

Markdown, meanwhile, remains most useful for developers, documentation, and content intended to be reused in different technical contexts — not necessarily for primary discovery.

Are shortcuts a good thing in SEO?

If this all feels a bit familiar, that’s because it is.

In the early days of SEO, there was no shortage of “shortcuts” that promised quick wins: keyword stuffing, hidden text, doorway pages. Some worked briefly. Most didn’t last. Nearly all distracted from the fundamentals that actually mattered.

The current Markdown-for-AI conversation risks heading down a similar path, chasing technical tweaks before we understand how they’ll be perceived by search engines down the line.

At the moment, there’s no solid data showing that serving Markdown versions of pages leads to better outcomes for brands or publishers. If anything, there’s a risk it could make content easier to consume without driving traffic, attribution, or value back to the source.

So… is Markdown for AI crawlability good SEO practice or a dicey shortcut?

Right now, we’d say: interesting experiment, unproven benefit.

Looking ahead to Google laying down more concrete guidelines on acceptable AI optimisation, it could potentially be seen as more of a black hat strategy. Although, being that it doesn’t in any way harm user experience, it’s perhaps not as sinister as the shortcuts of the SEO days of old. Grey hat?... maybe.

If your content already exists in Markdown for internal workflows, documentation, or developer audiences, there’s no harm in keeping an eye on how AI systems interact with it. But for most businesses, this isn’t something to rush into or prioritise.

The smarter focus remains:

• Create genuinely useful, authoritative content
• Structure it clearly using semantic HTML
• Use schema where it adds clarity
• Build credibility through consistency and expertise

AI is evolving quickly, and the rules are still being written. We’ll continue to watch how this space develops and share insights when there’s real evidence to act on.

If you’d like support navigating what’s worth acting on now (and what isn’t), TDMP focuses on AI-aware yet time-tested and evidence-led SEO strategies that deliver sustainable results. Request a free SEO audit today.