AI Search Optimisation · GEO · AEO · LLMO

Free AI SEO Checker

Is your website visible to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini? Get your AI readiness score in seconds — check crawler access, content structure, trust signals, and schema. Fix what is blocking your AI search presence. Free, no signup.

· Published by the Uptrue team

Free — no signup required. We fetch your page to run this check.

What is AI SEO — and why does it matter now?

Search is changing. In 2024, ChatGPT surpassed 100 million daily active users. Perplexity grew to over 500 million monthly queries. Google added AI Overviews to billions of search results. When someone asks an AI assistant a question in your niche, they get one answer — not a list of ten blue links. You either get cited, or you don't exist.

AI SEO — also called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), or LLMO (LLM Optimization) — is the practice of making your website a source that AI engines cite with confidence. The signals that matter are different from traditional SEO: structured data, explicit crawler permissions, clear authorship, and content written for human understanding rather than keyword density.

This free checker audits your website across the four pillars that determine your AI visibility and gives you an actionable fix for every issue.

The 4 pillars of AI readiness

1. AI Crawler Access

Each AI engine sends its own bot. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended — if your robots.txt blocks them (or doesn't exist), they cannot index you. This is the single biggest mistake most sites make.

2. Content Structure

AI engines extract answers from structured content. Question-style headings, numbered lists, clear definitions, and direct answers improve the chance of being cited verbatim. Thin pages and vague copy are invisible.

3. Trust & E-E-A-T

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. Named authors, About and Contact pages, Privacy Policy, external citations — these are how AI engines verify that your AI brand presence is legitimate.

4. Schema & Technical

JSON-LD structured data (Organization, Article, FAQ, HowTo) is how AI engines extract and verify facts about your content. Combined with a well-written llms.txt, it gives AI models an explicit map of your site.

Which AI bots should you allow — and what do they power?

Bot nameAI EngineWhy allow it
GPTBotChatGPT (OpenAI)Trains future ChatGPT models and populates ChatGPT Browse — the largest AI assistant user base
OAI-SearchBotChatGPT SearchPowers real-time search results in ChatGPT's search feature
ClaudeBotClaude (Anthropic)Indexes content for Claude AI answers and document analysis
PerplexityBotPerplexity AIPerplexity cites sources with explicit URLs — the highest direct referral traffic potential of any AI engine
Google-ExtendedGemini / AI OverviewsPowers Google AI Overviews (shown to billions of users) and Gemini responses
BingbotBing / CopilotPowers Microsoft Copilot, used across Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365

What is llms.txt — and why should you have one?

llms.txt is an emerging open standard for a plain text file at your domain root (e.g. yourdomain.com/llms.txt) that provides AI language models with a structured summary of your site — what it does, what pages exist, and how the content can be used. Think of it as a README for AI, or the robots.txt of the AI era.

Sites with a well-written llms.txt are more likely to be cited accurately and frequently by AI assistants. The standard was proposed by fast.ai and is gaining rapid adoption. Uptrue generates one tailored to your site and the specific AI engines you want to target — sign up free to access the generator in your dashboard.

How to improve your AI readiness score — step by step

Most sites fail on the same four issues. Fix them in this order and you will capture the majority of your missing points.

1
Create or fix your robots.txt

This is the most common and most costly mistake — a missing or over-restrictive robots.txt blocks all AI crawlers at once. Explicitly allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and Google-Extended.

2
Generate and deploy your llms.txt

Even a simple one-page file improves your AI search presence by giving models a direct description of your site. Use the free Uptrue generator to create one tailored to selected AI engines.

3
Add JSON-LD structured data

At minimum: Organization and WebSite schema on your homepage. Article or BlogPosting on content pages. FAQPage schema on any page with a FAQ section — the primary channel AI engines use to extract verified facts.

How to think about AI search — the terminology explained

The field is moving fast and the terminology is still settling. Here is a quick reference for the terms you will encounter:

TermWho uses itWhat it means
GEO — Generative Engine OptimizationAcademics, early adoptersMost technically precise term; covers all generative AI answer engines
AI Search OptimizationMarketing teamsPlain English umbrella term; broadly understood across all audiences
LLMO — LLM OptimizationDevelopers, technical teamsEmphasises the LLM layer; includes RAG pipelines and model training data
AEO — Answer Engine OptimizationSEO industryOlder term covering voice/featured snippets; being repurposed for AI
AI VisibilityEnterprise SEO platformsAggregate measure of how visible a brand is across AI answers
AI Brand PresencePR and brand teamsHow a brand appears (correctly, frequently, positively) in AI responses
AI Citation MonitoringTools like UptrueActively tracking which AI engines cite your domain, for which queries
AI Search PresenceEmerging / mixedComposite score of technical readiness + actual citation frequency
Got questions?

Frequently asked questions about AI SEO and GEO

Everything you need to know about Uptrue — no fluff.

What is GEO — Generative Engine Optimization?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimising your website so that AI language models like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini cite it as a source in their answers. It is the AI-era equivalent of traditional SEO but instead of ranking in a list of blue links, the goal is to be referenced verbatim in a conversational AI response. GEO is sometimes called AI Search Optimization, AIO (AI Optimization), or LLMO (LLM Optimization).
These terms all describe the same emerging discipline but come from different communities. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the academically coined term gaining traction fast. AI Search Optimization is the plain-English marketing version. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is older — it originally covered voice search and featured snippets, but the SEO industry is repurposing it for AI. LLMO (LLM Optimization) is the developer and technical crowd's label. AI Visibility is used by enterprise SEO platforms like BrightEdge. At Uptrue we use "AI Visibility" for the dashboard feature and "AI SEO" for the free tool because they are the most broadly understood terms across all audiences.
Enter your website URL and our server fetches your robots.txt and homepage HTML in real time. We run 30 checks across 4 categories: AI Crawler Access (can bots like GPTBot and PerplexityBot reach you?), AI Content Structure (is your content formatted for AI extraction?), Trust and Authority (do you have the E-E-A-T signals AI engines rely on?), and Schema & Technical (is your structured data correctly implemented?). The result is a 0–100 AI readiness score with specific fixes for every issue found.
No. AI crawlers like GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot are polite bots that respect your crawl-delay settings in robots.txt. They visit infrequently — typically a few pages per day — and have no measurable impact on site speed or real visitor experience. In contrast, blocking them means you are invisible to the fastest-growing traffic source on the web.
llms.txt is an emerging open standard (proposed by fast.ai) for a plain text file placed at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. It works like a README for AI — giving language models a structured summary of what your site is about, what pages exist, and how your content can be used. Sites with a well-written llms.txt are more likely to be cited accurately, more frequently, and with correct attribution by AI assistants. Think of it as the robots.txt of the AI era. Sign up free to generate a tailored llms.txt from your Uptrue dashboard.
AI Citation Monitoring tracks whether AI engines are actually citing your website when users ask questions in your niche. You give it target keywords, it queries AI engines like Perplexity (which provides explicit citation URLs) and analyses whether your domain appears in the responses. This moves beyond technical readiness into actual AI search presence measurement — showing you which topics you're winning and which competitors are being cited instead. Available with an Uptrue account.
Traditional SEO optimises for ranking in a list of blue links on a search engine results page. AI SEO (or GEO) optimises for being cited in a conversational AI answer. The ranking signals are different: AI engines weight structured data, explicit authorship and E-E-A-T signals, clear question-and-answer formatting, and freshness — rather than backlink count or keyword density. AI engines also consume your robots.txt and are beginning to use llms.txt as a direct instruction file. A site that ranks well on Google can still be invisible to AI search if it blocks crawlers or lacks structured content.
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — originally a Google quality guideline, now adopted as a key signal by AI engines when deciding which sources to cite. Practically, this means: named author or byline, an About page that explains who you are, a Privacy Policy and Contact page, links to and from credible external sources, and consistent presence across the web. AI engines prefer to cite sources they can verify as legitimate. Your AI brand presence — how you appear across the web as a credible source — directly affects whether AI answers reference you.
Yes. Enter any publicly accessible URL — your homepage, a specific blog post, a product page, or a landing page. Each page is checked independently. A blog post, for example, should also have Article or BlogPosting JSON-LD schema, an author name, and a publication date — checks that would not be expected on a homepage.
After any major site change — a robots.txt edit, new schema added, structural redesign, or new content published. For ongoing AI search presence monitoring, set up an Uptrue AI Citation Monitor to track your visibility automatically. Your technical readiness score is a foundation; the citation data tells you whether it is actually translating into AI search referrals.
AI search presence is the aggregate measure of how often and how accurately AI engines cite your website in responses — combining technical readiness, content quality, and actual citation frequency. To improve it: first fix your AI readiness score (this tool tells you exactly what to fix), then generate and deploy your llms.txt, then use structured content with clear question-and-answer headings, and finally monitor actual citations with a tool like Uptrue AI Citation Monitor to see what is working.

Ready to monitor your AI search presence?

This checker gives you a technical readiness score. Uptrue AI Visibility™ goes further — generate your llms.txt and track whether Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini are actually citing you for your target keywords. Pair it with robots.txt change monitoring and sitemap validity monitoring so an accidental Disallow or broken sitemap never silently blocks AI crawlers.

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