AI search visibility audit: can ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews cite your site?

An AI search visibility audit answers one question: when someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini or Google AI Overviews about what you do, can they reach your site, read it and cite it? Most sites fail on something simple, such as a firewall blocking the crawler or content that only exists after JavaScript runs. I built a free open-source tool that checks this in one command, and I offer a written audit with the fixes in priority order.

What gets checked

Five layers. SEO: the basics search engines still need. AEO, answer engine optimisation: FAQ and question-led structure, answer-first paragraphs, lists and tables. GEO, generative engine optimisation: robots.txt rules for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and the rest, whether the firewall blocks them, llms.txt, content readable without JavaScript, entity schema. AIO: Google AI Overviews and Gemini readiness, valid JSON-LD, dates, authors, Open Graph. SXO: speed and rendering.

The free tool

ai-visibility-audit is one Python file with no dependencies. Run it against any site and it scores the five layers, prints every check with a fix, lists the top five fixes by points lost, and can write a JSON or HTML report. It also runs as a GitHub Action so a site cannot regress. It grew out of the audit I run every morning on my own sites, where the same checks earned referrals from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini.

The written audit

For companies that want it done and explained: up to 25 pages audited, the robots rules for every major AI crawler reviewed, llms.txt and structured data checked, a written report with every finding and the fix in priority order, and a walkthrough call. A new website survey before you build is the same thinking applied before a developer writes a line.

Why it matters now

AI answer engines send a small but growing share of visits, and the people who arrive that way have already been told what you do by the engine. If the engine cannot read you, it describes a competitor instead. The fixes are cheap, mostly text and configuration, and nobody else on your team is checking.

Read the evidence

Questions people ask

Is this the same as SEO?

SEO is one of the five layers. The other four are about AI answer engines, which read sites differently: they need permission in robots.txt, content in the raw HTML, structured data they can trust, and answers they can quote. A site can rank on Google and still be invisible to ChatGPT.

Does llms.txt actually work?

It costs nothing to add and it is the one file written for AI assistants, but adoption by the big AI companies is uneven and not confirmed. Publish it, then fix the things that certainly matter: crawler permissions, readable HTML, structured data and answer-first pages.

Can I run the check myself?

Yes. Download the free tool and run one command against your site. The written audit is for when you want it interpreted, prioritised and explained to the people who will do the fixes.

How long does the audit take?

Three working days for the written report, then a 30 minute walkthrough call.

Talk to me

Email with a few lines about your situation, or message me on LinkedIn. I reply within one working day, Dubai time. Fees are quoted in writing before anything is paid.