Used by 1,000+ websites

Is your website invisible to AI?

ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI answer boxes are replacing search. Find out if AI engines can actually see, and cite, your website, and whether ChatGPT recommends your brand when buyers ask.

JS rendering check GPTBot live probe Live AI answer preview Content structure Performance Security headers Accessibility

60% of Google searches now end without a click

3 in 4 websites are partially or fully invisible to AI engines

800M+ people use ChatGPT every week and ask it for recommendations

Sources: SparkToro 2024 Zero-Click Search Study · OpenAI weekly active users

The basics

What is AI visibility?

AI visibility is how well AI engines, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overviews, can discover, read, trust and cite your website when people ask them questions. A site with high AI visibility gets recommended inside AI answers. A site with low AI visibility is invisible, even if it ranks well on Google.

Search is shifting from "ten blue links" to direct answers. When a buyer asks ChatGPT "what's the best tool for X?", the AI either names your business or it doesn't, and that decision is driven by signals most websites have never optimized for: crawlable HTML, structured data, an llms.txt file, clear heading structure, and fresh, well-attributed content. This free website AI visibility checker measures all of them and tells you exactly what to fix.

How it works

From invisible to citable in minutes

No account needed. Paste your URL and we handle the rest.

Enter your URL

We resolve redirects, read your robots.txt for sitemaps, discover your pages, and fetch up to 15 real pages, not just the homepage.

Get your AI score

We run 35 checks across 6 categories: crawlability, content structure, content quality, performance, security, and accessibility, including a live GPTBot probe, AI content-quality analysis, automated accessibility & contrast, security-header and JS rendering checks.

See exactly what to fix

Every issue comes with a plain-English explanation, an estimated fix time, and exactly how to fix it, from robots.txt and llms.txt edits to the JSON-LD schema your pages are missing. Your prioritized AI Action Plan shows which fix moves your score most, projects your potential score, and can be emailed straight to your inbox.

Two types of fixes

Config fixes

(robots.txt, llms.txt), exact rules to add, plus a link to our free llms.txt Generator if you're missing the file.

Code snippets

(JSON-LD schemas), we show exactly which schema each page is missing so AI engines can parse what it's about.

Results in ~30 seconds

We fetch your pages and run all checks in parallel. Most audits complete in under a minute, even for large sites.

See if AI actually recommends you

Live AI preview

We ask ChatGPT and Claude real buyer questions about your category (live, without naming you) and show whether your brand comes up in their answers.

Benchmark & share

Compare your category scores against the average site, send the full report to a teammate with one link, and rescan after fixing to watch your score go up.

What we check

35 checks across 6 categories

Every check maps to a specific reason AI engines skip, misrepresent, or ignore websites. Issues tell you exactly which pages need fixing.

Crawlability

66 pts

Can AI engines reach and load your pages

Content visible without JavaScript (SPA detection)
AI bots allowed in robots.txt
Live GPTBot probe (catches WAF / CDN blocks)
Canonical URLs on all pages
llms.txt file present and valid
Page loads fast enough for crawlers
No broken internal links

Content Structure

67 pts

Machine-readable structure AI engines parse and cite

Semantic HTML elements used
H1 → H2 → H3 heading hierarchy
Structured data: FAQ, Article, Organization, Breadcrumb, Contact & HowTo schema
JSON-LD is structurally valid
Title tags & meta descriptions
Open Graph tags
dateModified in schema

Content Quality

40 pts

Trust and freshness signals that get content cited

Entities & identity clearly defined
Claims are clear and citable
Content has real depth (not thin)
Demonstrates topical authority
Named author on articles
"Last updated" timestamps visible
Content updated within 90 days

Performance

14 pts

How fast and stable your pages load for crawlers

Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS) are healthy
Page load time (Speed Index, interactive)
Images & resources optimized

Security

9 pts

Trust signals AI crawlers and browsers respect

HTTPS with no mixed content
Security headers (HSTS, CSP, X-Content-Type-Options)

Accessibility

13 pts

How cleanly machines and assistive tech parse your page

Images have descriptive alt text
Automated accessibility checks (Lighthouse / axe)
Text contrast meets WCAG AA

From snapshot to system

This check is a snapshot. Sona is the system.

The free checker above is a one-time look at whether AI engines can see your site. The Sona platform tracks how you actually show up in AI answers, and what that visibility sends back to your site, every day, against your competitors.

AI Visibility

"Am I being cited in AI answers, and how do I compare to competitors?"

Track the prompts your buyers actually ask across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews & Claude
See your rankings and share of voice against competitors
Find which sources answer engines cite, and which of your own pages get surfaced

Agent Analytics

"Are AI crawlers reading my site, and is AI search sending me traffic?"

See AI crawler activity by bot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended
Measure referral traffic clicking through from AI answers
Page-level view of what gets crawled and what drives AI referrals

Get crawled Get cited in answers Earn referral clicks

Start tracking with Sona, free or book a demo

SEO vs AEO vs GEO

Three ways to get found in 2026

Classic SEO still matters, but it only covers one of the three places buyers now look. AI visibility is the overlap of all three.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization

Gets your pages ranked in Google's blue links. Driven by keywords, backlinks and page experience. Still the largest source of traffic, but a shrinking share as answers move on-page.

AEO

Answer Engine Optimization

Gets your content quoted as the answer inside ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Driven by structured data, clear Q&A formatting and citable, sourced facts.

GEO

Generative Engine Optimization

Gets your brand recommended when AI generates a response. Driven by how often, and how trustworthily, your brand is mentioned across the web that AI models learn from.

AI visibility glossary

GPTBot: OpenAI's crawler. Allow it in robots.txt so ChatGPT can read and cite your site.
llms.txt: A root-level text file that gives AI engines a prioritized map of your best content. Full guide →
Structured data (JSON-LD): Machine-readable markup (FAQPage, Article, Organization) that tells AI exactly what your page means.
AI Overviews: Google's AI-generated answer box that appears above traditional results.
Zero-click search: A search that's answered on the results page, so the user never clicks through to a site.
Citation: When an AI engine names or links your site as the source of its answer, the goal of AI visibility.

FAQ

Common questions

What is AI visibility and why does it matter?

AI visibility refers to how well AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews can discover, read, and cite your website. As more users get answers directly from AI rather than clicking search results, being invisible to AI means losing traffic, leads, and brand mentions, even if your SEO is perfect.

How is this different from regular SEO tools?

Traditional SEO tools optimise for Google's crawlers and ranking algorithms. AI visibility focuses on a different set of signals: structured data that AI engines parse, llms.txt files that guide AI reading, content quality signals that make AI engines trust and cite you, and freshness indicators that determine whether AI responses include your content.

Does the checker show whether ChatGPT actually mentions my brand?

Yes. Alongside the technical audit, your report includes a free live AI visibility preview: we ask ChatGPT and Claude real buyer questions about your category, without naming your brand, and show whether you actually come up in their answers. These are real answers queried at scan time, not estimates.

Which pages does the audit actually check?

We parse your robots.txt for sitemap hints, try common sitemap locations, and fall back to homepage link extraction. We then fetch up to 15 pages and target the right ones for each check: blog posts for Article schema, contact pages for ContactPage schema, inner pages for BreadcrumbList, and how-to pages for HowTo schema. Issues tell you exactly which pages are missing what.

How do I make my website visible to ChatGPT?

Allow AI crawlers like GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot in your robots.txt, serve your main content in server-rendered HTML (not JavaScript-only), add JSON-LD structured data (Organization, FAQPage, Article), publish an llms.txt file, and keep content fresh with visible "last updated" dates. Run a free AI visibility check above to see exactly which of these you're missing.

What is GPTBot and should I allow it on my website?

GPTBot is OpenAI's web crawler. It collects content that helps ChatGPT discover, understand and cite websites. If you want to appear in ChatGPT's answers, you should allow GPTBot in your robots.txt, blocking it makes your site invisible to one of the largest AI audiences. Our checker runs a live GPTBot probe to confirm whether OpenAI can actually reach your pages.

What is llms.txt and do I need one?

llms.txt is a plain-text file placed at the root of your domain that gives AI engines a clean, prioritized map of your most important content, like a robots.txt and sitemap designed specifically for large language models. It's an emerging standard and not yet required, but adding one helps AI engines read and cite the right pages. Our complete llms.txt guide explains how to write one.

Does AI visibility affect my Google ranking?

They overlap but aren't the same. Google AI Overviews pull from AI-readable signals, structured data, crawlable HTML, clear headings and freshness, which are the same signals that strengthen traditional SEO. So improving AI visibility usually helps your Google ranking too, but it also wins you placement in answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity that classic SEO ignores. See SEO vs AEO vs GEO.

What is a good AI visibility score?

Our checker scores your site from 0 to 100 with a letter grade. 90+ (A) means AI engines can fully crawl, parse and cite your site. 70–89 (B–C) means you're visible but missing structured data or freshness signals. Below 70 (D–F) means AI engines are likely skipping or misrepresenting your content. Most sites score in the 50–70 range on their first scan.

What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?

SEO gets your pages ranked in traditional search results. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) gets your content quoted as the answer in AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) gets your brand recommended inside AI-generated responses. AI visibility covers all three. Read the full breakdown in our guide.

Resources

Learn AI visibility

Practical guides on getting your website seen and cited by AI engines.

Guide

View all guides →