Audit Your Site Before You Optimize for AI Search
Stop guessing what's wrong with your website. Performance, security, SEO infrastructure, AI-readiness, and a prioritized fix list you can execute with us or anyone else.
AI search optimization
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and GEO Services
Visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews is built on verifiable technical foundations. We audit against documented crawler behavior, not agency folklore, and grade every recommendation by the evidence behind it.
readiness report · evidence-graded
Raw-HTML contentverified
JSON-LD schemaverified
llms.txtpartial
Guaranteed AI rankingsfolklore
every recommendation graded by the evidence behind it
What Is an AI Search Optimization (AEO/GEO) Audit?
An AI Search Readiness Audit checks whether AI systems can crawl, render, and cite your site: raw HTML versus client-side JavaScript, JSON-LD schema validity, semantic structure, and indexability. It costs $1,500 fixed ($2,500 for large or e-commerce sites), ends in an evidence-graded remediation list, and an optional implementation sprint executes it from $2,500.
What's the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?
SEO earns rankings in classic search results; AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) earns your content a place in direct answers, from AI Overviews to voice assistants; GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) earns citations inside generated responses from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. They share a technical floor: crawlable HTML, valid structured data, and content written so a machine can lift an answer from it. That floor is what the audit measures. Full glossary, including why AIO isn't worth building a strategy around, in the SEO vs AEO vs AIO vs GEO guide.
How do I get my site cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity?
Make your content technically liftable and factually citable. AI crawlers mostly read raw HTML, so content rendered only by client-side JavaScript is often invisible to them. Cited pages tend to share traits: direct answers near the top, question-form headings, valid schema, and data that exists nowhere else. None of this is a hack; all of it is auditable. Full walkthrough in the guide on getting cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity.
What does the AI Search Readiness Audit check?
Crawlability and rendering analysis (raw HTML vs client-side JS), JSON-LD schema validation, semantic HTML review, indexability report, an evidence-graded llms.txt recommendation, and a prioritized remediation list. Standard sites $1,500 fixed; large or e-commerce sites $2,500 fixed. The optional implementation sprint (quote, from $2,500) executes the list; the quote is driven by finding count, template count, and CMS constraints.
The relationship to the $795 Technical Audit: the audit's AI-readiness section is a screening pass; this product is the full evidence-graded version.
Does llms.txt actually work?
The honest answer is "unproven, and it costs almost nothing to have." llms.txt is a proposed convention, not a standard, and Google's documentation says no AI text files are needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. We've run one in production on a client platform since the convention appeared, which is why our recommendation is evidence-graded rather than hyped: we tell you what it demonstrably does, what's speculative, and whether your site should bother.
markdown · llms.txt (anonymized)
# llms.txt - production excerpt
> [Company] provides travel protection plans for US travelers.
> This file summarizes the site for AI systems. Canonical
> information lives at the URLs below.
## Key pages
- /plans/ : coverage tiers and what each includes
- /claims/ : how to file a claim, processing timelines
- /faq/ : answers to the most common coverage questionsThe structure matters more than the file: short factual summary, canonical URLs, no marketing language. An AI system that reads it gets the same facts a human gets.
Are "AI ranking hacks" real?
No. There is no secret prompt, meta tag, or paid trick that makes generative engines prefer your brand. What's real and verifiable: technical crawlability, structured data, answer-shaped content, and original information worth citing. If someone sells you guaranteed ChatGPT rankings, they're selling folklore. This is the audit's whole reason for grading evidence.
What do OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google document about AI crawling?
Most AI-search advice is folklore. The three vendors that matter publish what their crawlers do and what controls you have. Linked facts come from vendor documentation, checked 10 October 2026; unlinked cells are our description.
OpenAI (ChatGPT)
- Crawler for search results
- OAI-SearchBot surfaces sites in ChatGPT search; disallowing it removes the site from those answers (OpenAI docs: crawlers).
- Model training
- GPTBot crawls for training generative models and is controlled separately (OpenAI docs: crawlers).
- User-initiated fetches
- ChatGPT-User acts on a user's request and is not automatically bound by robots.txt (OpenAI docs: crawlers).
- Special markup or files
- None documented in the source above.
- How fast changes apply
- A robots.txt update can take about 24 hours to take effect (OpenAI docs: crawlers).
Perplexity
- Crawler for search results
- PerplexityBot surfaces sites in Perplexity results (Perplexity docs: crawlers).
- Model training
- Perplexity says neither of its crawlers collects data for training foundation models (Perplexity docs: crawlers).
- User-initiated fetches
- Perplexity-User generally bypasses robots.txt because the user initiated the request (Perplexity docs: crawlers).
- Special markup or files
- None documented in the source above.
- How fast changes apply
- Not stated in the source above.
Google (AI Overviews and AI Mode)
- Crawler for search results
- Standard Search crawling and indexing; there is no separate AI crawler requirement (Google Search Central: AI features).
- Model training
- Google points to Google-Extended for AI training beyond Search (Google Search Central: AI features).
- User-initiated fetches
- Not applicable; Search controls apply.
- Special markup or files
- Google says no new machine-readable files, AI text files, or markup are needed to appear (Google Search Central: AI features).
- How fast changes apply
- Controlled with robots.txt, noindex, and snippet directives such as nosnippet (Google Search Central: AI features).
Sources, checked 10 October 2026
- OpenAI docs: crawlers
- Perplexity docs: crawlers
- Google Search Central: AI features (updated 10 December 2025)
What Pairs With an AI Search Readiness Audit?
Slow Sites Get Crawled Less, Fix Core Web Vitals Too
Manual engineering against real-user field data, not another caching plugin. Fixed-fee diagnostic and remediation sprints measured against 28-day CrUX data.
Get Consulting on AI Search Strategy, Not Just the Audit
Senior engineering judgment on demand: fixed-fee technical audits, one-hour strategy sessions, fractional CTO engagements, and custom application development & support.
How Is This Different From the AEO Technical Checklist & Audit?
A shorter, checklist-driven AEO screening for sites that need a quick read before the full audit.
Is My Wix or Webflow Site Readable by AI Crawlers?
Checking Whether Wix Renders Content AI Crawlers Can Read
In our audits, builder sites that lean on client-side rendering are the pattern most likely to hide content from AI crawlers.
Checking Whether Webflow Renders Content AI Crawlers Can Read
Webflow renders mostly static HTML, but interactions and CMS collections still need a rendering check.
How Do I Make My Content Usable by AI Systems Beyond Search?
The Full Guide to Getting Cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity
What actually gets a page lifted into a generated answer, beyond the audit checklist.
Turning AI-Readable Content Into Your Own Knowledge Base Assistant
The same crawlable, well-structured content an AI Search Readiness Audit demands also powers a grounded assistant on your own site.
Scattered Brand Data Undercuts This Audit Before It Starts
Why inconsistent name, address, and schema data confuses AI answer engines even when your content itself is technically sound.
Going deeper
AI search readiness questions
What is generative engine optimization (GEO), and is it different from AEO?
GEO is optimization for being cited in AI-generated answers, and AEO is optimization for being the direct answer. They share the same foundation: crawlable pages, content in the raw HTML, answer-first structure, and original information worth citing. This service covers both, and the SEO vs AEO vs GEO guide has the definitions.
What schema markup does a React site need for AI crawlers?
JSON-LD that exists in the raw HTML response, not injected after hydration. Organization, WebPage, and content-type nodes (Service, FAQPage, Article) matter most. If your schema only appears after JavaScript runs, it may be missing from what AI systems retrieve, because the crawler documentation from OpenAI and Perplexity does not promise JavaScript rendering. The audit tests exactly this.
How do I appear in Google AI Overviews?
Google's documentation says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: a page needs to be indexable and eligible to show a snippet. Helpful content, a good page experience, and structured data that matches the visible text are the working levers. Nobody can guarantee placement; anyone who says otherwise is guessing.
How do I know if AI crawlers can render my JavaScript site?
Fetch your page the way a crawler does: request the raw HTML and see what's in it. If your content isn't in that response, it may be missing from what AI systems retrieve, since the vendor documentation does not promise JavaScript rendering. The audit does this per template and shows you the diff between what you see and what the machine sees.
What is llms.txt and should my site have one?
A markdown file at your site root summarizing your content for AI systems, similar in spirit to robots.txt. It's a convention with uneven adoption, cheap to implement and honestly graded "promising, unproven" by our audits. We recommend it where the cost is near zero, and we say what it won't do.
Does site speed affect AI-search visibility?
Indirectly but really. Slow sites can get crawled less and rank worse in classic search, and Google says a page must be indexed to appear in AI Overviews. Speed is part of the technical floor, which is why the audit reports on it and why the CWV sprint exists.
What does the implementation sprint actually do?
It executes the audit's remediation list: schema fixes, rendering changes, semantic HTML corrections, answer-block restructuring. Priced by quote from $2,500, driven by the number of findings, templates, and what your CMS allows.
What's evidence-backed versus agency folklore in AEO?
Evidence-backed: crawlability, raw-HTML content, valid structured data, answer-first formatting, original data. Folklore: guaranteed AI rankings, secret prompt tricks, keyword-stuffed "AI content", paying for citations. The audit grades every recommendation so you can see which bucket it's in.
Do you offer ongoing AEO retainers?
Not as a standing product yet. The audit plus implementation sprint covers most needs; ongoing monitoring can be scoped through consulting. Compare any retainer offer on what is written down in the task list, not on the monthly fee.
AEO and AI search
Get Your AI Search Readiness (AEO) Audit.
The audit checks whether your content, schema, and infrastructure are actually readable by answer engines, not just search crawlers.