AI SEO check,
myths removed.

What AI engines cite

Clear entities, consistent facts across pages, original statistics with sources, expert quotes, semantic HTML headings, and schema matching visible content. The audit checks every one of these signals on your pages today.

Claims, classified honestly

Every AI-visibility recommendation is labeled: CONFIRMED (crawlable, semantic markup), LIKELY (original research earns citations), EXPERIMENTAL (formatting tricks), UNPROVEN or FALSE (paid mentions, fake citations, keyword stuffing). You'll always know how solid the advice is.

Myths this checker kills

llms.txt boosts Google rankings, false, it's not a ranking requirement. Every backlink needs disavowing, false, Google ignores most junk. AI content is auto-penalized, false, usefulness is judged, not authorship. Valid schema guarantees rich results, false, it only makes you eligible.

What to do instead

Publish original data nobody else has. Cite real sources. Keep facts consistent everywhere. Structure pages so both humans and machines can follow them. That boring advice is the entire game.

How AI answers choose their sources

AI answer features and assistants, such as Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT search and Perplexity, generate a response by retrieving pages from a search index and then summarising or quoting them. The pages that get cited are usually ones the system can crawl, can understand quickly and has reason to trust. That makes AI visibility closely related to ordinary search visibility, with some extra emphasis on clear, self-contained statements of fact.

No outside tool can see inside these systems, so any claim to give you a precise "AI ranking" should be treated with caution. What can be measured honestly is whether your pages have the properties that make citation likely.

What Google says about AI features

Google's documentation states that there are no special requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond the fundamentals: the page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet. It also says that normal SEO best practices remain relevant, and that you do not need to create separate files or markup for AI. In other words, the best preparation is the same work that helps you in standard search.

Practical steps that help

1. Let reputable crawlers in. Check your robots.txt so you are not blocking search crawlers you want to appear in. Use the free robots.txt generator to decide which AI crawlers to allow or block on purpose.
2. Answer questions directly. Put a clear, concise answer near the top of the section, then expand with detail. Write headings as the questions people ask.
3. Keep facts consistent. Names, prices, dates and claims should match across your pages, profiles and listings.
4. Cite sources. Link to the primary source for statistics and claims. It helps readers and signals care.
5. Show who is behind the content. Named authors, an about page and contact details support trust.
6. Use sensible structured data. Markup that matches visible content helps machines understand the page. Build it with the schema markup generator.
7. Keep content fresh. Update dates and facts on pages that are still relevant.

Content that earns citations

Assistants quote pages that add something. Original numbers from your own data, first-hand testing, clear definitions, step by step instructions and well organised comparisons are all easy to lift into an answer. Generic text that repeats what a dozen other pages say gives a system no reason to pick yours.

Write in complete, quotable sentences. Avoid burying the answer inside long storytelling. Use lists and tables where they genuinely make information easier to scan, and make sure important content is in the HTML itself rather than loaded only by scripts.

Technical access and rendering

Many AI crawlers read the raw HTML and do not run scripts the way a browser does. If your main content only appears after JavaScript runs, some systems may never see it. Server-rendered or static pages are the safest option. Also make sure your pages load quickly, return normal status codes and are not hidden behind logins or aggressive bot protection that blocks legitimate crawlers.

What about llms.txt?

llms.txt is an optional, proposed convention for giving language models a curated index of your site. It is not a Google ranking factor, and no major search engine has confirmed that it uses the file. It is cheap to publish and can be useful for documentation sites, so build one with the llms.txt generator if you like, but do not rely on it.

Measuring AI visibility honestly

You can check manually by searching for your key questions in AI assistants and noting whether and how you are cited. Repeat the same set of prompts monthly and record the results in a spreadsheet. Watch referral traffic in analytics for visits from AI products, and keep an eye on branded search volume. Treat all of it as directional, since answers vary between runs and users.

Myths to ignore

• "AI content is automatically penalised." Google judges usefulness and quality, not the tool used to write it.
• "You need special markup for AI." Google says you do not.
• "More pages means more citations." Thin pages dilute your site. Fewer, better pages perform better.
• "Paying for mentions guarantees visibility." Mentions that are bought or faked carry little weight and can harm trust.

An AI-readiness checklist

• Your key pages are indexed, return 200 and can be viewed without logging in.
• Robots.txt allows the search crawlers you want, and your decisions about training crawlers are deliberate.
• Each page opens with a direct answer to the question its heading asks.
• Facts, names and figures are consistent across the site.
• Sources are linked, authors are named and the page shows a last updated date.
• Main content is in the HTML, not only produced by scripts.
• Structured data matches what visitors can see.

Run the free SEO audit to check the technical items automatically, and read the AI readiness section of the report for a breakdown of the on-page signals. The score is an estimate of how quotable your pages are, not a measure of real mentions, and it is labelled that way on purpose.

Sources

• Google: Structured data
• Google: Helpful content
• Schema.org

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