--- title: "Opening paragraph doesn't state the answer concisely (geo/answer-first)" description: "geo/answer-first: Microsoft's guidance for AI answers favours one- to two-sentence, self-contained answers that name the subject; paragraphs opening with…" canonical: https://void-design.vercel.app/rules/geo/answer-first lastModified: 2026-09-16 --- # Opening paragraph doesn't state the answer concisely `geo/answer-first` · severity **info** · category AI search · detected by `void geo` and `void audit` ## Why it matters Microsoft's guidance for AI answers favours one- to two-sentence, self-contained answers that name the subject; paragraphs opening with "It/This" can't be lifted on their own. ## How to fix it Start with a ≤ 320-character paragraph under the h1 that answers the page's question and names the entity. ## References - https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en/blog/post/october-2025/optimizing-your-content-for-inclusion-in-ai-search-answers ## More ai search rules `void geo` reports 41 rules in this category. Generative-engine optimisation: whether AI crawlers that don't run JavaScript see the same content, valid and visible JSON-LD, an explicit AI robots policy, llms.txt, Markdown mirrors and answer-first writing. - `article-date-missing` Article has no machine-readable or visible date — [geo/article-date-missing](https://void-design.vercel.app/rules/geo/article-date-missing) - `article-author-missing` Article author missing or malformed — [geo/article-author-missing](https://void-design.vercel.app/rules/geo/article-author-missing) - `landmarks` Missing
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