AI visibility audit: why ChatGPT cites your site, or does not
An AI visibility audit reviews what is on your page so that an assistant such as ChatGPT or Gemini can extract an answer from it and trust it as a source. SmoothSeen does not stop at whether you are cited: it audits the causes on the page, which is what you can fix.
Analyse my site for free- For
- Sites that want to be the source of an answer
- What it measures
- Extractability (AEO), credibility (GEO) and coverage
- Plans
- All of them, including free
- Reviewed
What it checks
These are two different questions. AEO: can an answer be extracted from the page without reading all of it? GEO: why would a model choose it as a source when writing its own? The checks are grouped like this:
Extractability (AEO)
Whether the answer is where an extractor looks for it, in a format it can copy as is.
- Direct answer
- Whether the page answers the question in its opening paragraphs. An assistant quotes what it can extract without reading the whole page.
- Structure for AI
- Headings and semantic HTML that let a model tell which part of the page answers what.
- Extractable format
- Summaries, tables of contents, FAQs, lists and a question-and-answer tone: the blocks an assistant can quote as they are, plus the llms.txt that tells it what to read.
- Readability
- Sentences and vocabulary a model — and a person in a hurry — can process without rereading.
Credibility (GEO)
Why a model would trust the page as a source.
- Citable facts
- Concrete figures, dates and prices. A model cites what it can verify before it cites generic claims.
- Sources and citations
- Links to external sources and attributed quotes: what separates documented content from opinion.
- Domain authority
- The site’s accumulated reputation, measured by who links to it.
- Freshness
- A visible published or reviewed date. Without one, an assistant cannot tell whether the fact still holds.
- Authorship and experience
- Who signs it and with what credentials. The E-E-A-T signal that weighs most on sensitive topics.
- Data consistency
- That what the page says matches what directories and external listings say.
- AI markup
- Structured data (Schema) that explicitly declares what the content is about.
- AI engine access
- Which AI crawlers robots.txt lets in. Blocking the search ones (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot…) can take you out of their answers; blocking the training ones (GPTBot, ClaudeBot…) does not take you out of ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity, and it is a legitimate choice.
Coverage
Whether there is enough content and it resolves what people search for.
- Topic coverage
- Whether the page genuinely resolves the search intent or merely mentions it.
Each page is also classified by type and only asked for what fits it. Local businesses and shops have checks of their own: Local business · Online shops
What you get
- Your AI visibility score, from 0 to 100, next to your search visibility score: both in the same analysis.
- What fails in each block, with what was found: the opening paragraph that does not answer, the page with no date or byline, the missing links to sources.
- Which AI crawlers your robots.txt lets in, engine by engine: search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot or PerplexityBot, and training crawlers such as GPTBot or ClaudeBot.1
- A single action plan with the tasks from both scores, ordered by severity and, if you measure competitors, showing which already meet them.
More detail in Features: AI visibility · Action plan · Competitors
Who it is for
For anyone who sees assistants answering questions about their field and wants to know why they are not chosen as a source.
- Companies, media and blogs that publish guides and want an assistant to cite them.
- Content teams who need a concrete list of changes, not a trend.
- Agencies that want to offer AEO and GEO to their clients with a diagnosis they can defend.
Other pages for your case: SEO audit · For agencies · Local business · Online shops
What it does not do
It does not measure how often Perplexity, Claude, Copilot or Google’s AI Overviews mention you, and it does not track rankings. It measures what depends on you: what is on the page and what it lets crawlers see.
To understand the topic
What AEO is, what GEO is and what makes an assistant read you, understand you and cite you.
Frequently asked questions
Does SmoothSeen tell me whether ChatGPT cites me?
The audit does not count citations: it reviews what makes it possible for an assistant to cite you. Whether the page answers early, gives data and sources, declares an author and a date, whether its markup says what it is and whether it lets AI search crawlers in. That is what you can change.
What are AEO and GEO?
AEO (answer engine optimisation) aims for an answer to be extractable from the page without reading all of it. GEO (generative engine optimisation) aims for a model to choose the page as a source when writing its own answer. The audit looks at both.
Should I block GPTBot or ClaudeBot in robots.txt?
That is your decision. Blocking training crawlers does not take you out of ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity answers; blocking search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot can. The audit shows you what your robots.txt lets through, engine by engine.
Does it work for any type of page?
Yes. Each page is classified as a product page, a catalogue, a local business or an article, and is only asked for what fits its type: a product page is not expected to carry an author byline.
Do I have to choose between SEO and AI visibility?
No. Every analysis gives both scores, search visibility and AI visibility, and a single action plan with the tasks from both.
Is the AI visibility audit free?
Yes. The free plan runs the same checks as the paid ones and gives both scores, the summary by area and the first items of the action plan; the paid plans add the detail of every check, more analyses a month, the full plan, the PDF, the competitor comparison and tracking. You need to create an account to run the analysis.