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A free GEO audit is a checklist a company runs on its own, with free tools, to find out why AI doesn’t cite its brand. It checks whether AI crawlers can get into the site and whether Google and Bing index the pages. It also shows whether the brand appears in category questions and which sources AI cites.
In short
- The first block to look for is technical, because without OAI-SearchBot allowed, the site doesn’t appear in ChatGPT answers that use search.
- Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are free and show blocks and indexing. In addition, Bing shows the pages Copilot cites.
- The prompt test uses category questions, without the brand name and repeated, because AI almost never repeats the same list of brands.
- The free GEO audit checklist is for diagnosis. But tracking several engines and competitors every month takes hundreds of answers and a different scale of collection.
What does a free GEO audit check?
The free GEO audit checklist covers five parts, in this order: AI crawler access, indexing in Google and Bing, presence in category questions, the sources AI cites and the accuracy of what it says about the brand. The order matters, because a technical block cancels out all content work.
| Part | Free tool | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Crawler access | robots.txt, CDN, logs and HTML | Search crawler blocked |
| Indexing | Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools | Key page missing from the index |
| Category questions | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Mode | Competitors show up, but the brand doesn’t |
| Cited sources | Answers with sources and AI reports | Brand missing from the cited domains |
| Accuracy | Questions with the brand name | Wrong price, offer or address |
Each part matches one of the reasons AI doesn’t cite a brand. This GEO audit checklist is the self-audit, done by the company itself. On the other hand, the diagnosis an agency sells to clients, with a baseline and competitors, is in the guide to GEO for agencies.
Automated checkers, searched for as GEO SEO checker or AEO audit, return a ready-made score. However, use the score as a starting point, not a verdict. In its generative AI guide, Google asks you to be wary of tools that promise ranking success or claim to use internal metrics. According to the company, no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.
How do you check AI crawler access to your site?
The GEO audit checklist starts with robots.txt. Look there for rules that block the AI search crawlers, such as OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT), PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot, as well as Googlebot and Bingbot. Then check the CDN and firewall, which can block a crawler even when the file allows it. Finally, check the logs to see whether visits arrive and the source code to see whether the text appears.
- Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Look for
User-agentgroups withDisallow: /for these crawlers and for aUser-agent: *that blocks the whole site. - Separate search from training. GPTBot and ClaudeBot collect content for training. Blocking them is the company’s decision, since it doesn’t remove the site from answers that use search. Google-Extended, however, is different: it also controls the grounding of answers in the Gemini apps, as the crawler table in the guide to what GEO is shows.
- Check the CDN and firewall. Bot protection rules can block AI before it reads robots.txt. If the site uses Cloudflare, also check the AI crawler blocking in the CDN dashboard. After all, a block turned on there stops the crawler even when robots.txt allows it.
- Read the server or CDN logs. Filter by crawler name and check that key pages respond with a 200 status code.
- Open the source code of key pages. The main text must be in the HTML; in other words, it can’t depend on JavaScript.
To decide crawler by crawler, see which crawlers to allow and which to block in robots.txt.
Why do search crawlers come first in a GEO audit?
According to OpenAI’s documentation, sites that block OAI-SearchBot don’t appear in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still show up as navigational links. For this reason, the company recommends allowing the crawler in robots.txt and accepting the IP ranges it publishes.
Similarly, according to Anthropic, blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce the site’s visibility in Claude’s search results. Perplexity also recommends allowing PerplexityBot. In addition, it warns that, with a web application firewall, you may need to explicitly allow its crawlers.
How do you check indexing in Bing and Google?
AI only cites what it finds in the indexes it consults. For example, ChatGPT sends some searches to partners such as Bing, and Google’s AI features require an indexed page. So a GEO audit uses two free dashboards: Bing Webmaster Tools and Search Console show blocks, errors and the status of each important URL.
According to the Bing Webmaster blog, Bing powers AI tools like ChatGPT. The tool is free and imports sites already verified in Search Console. In the audit, use three of its features:
- Sitemaps: submit the sitemap and check that it was processed.
- URL Inspection: check indexing, response code and blocked resources for key pages.
- Robots.txt Tester: confirm that Bingbot can reach the main content.
The guide on how to show up in ChatGPT explains why Bing carries so much weight.
In Google, the page must be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet. At the same time, Google’s generative AI guide requires the site to be included in these features in Search Console. The control is under Settings > Search generative AI. According to Search Console Help, the control reached all sites on August 31, 2026, and including the site is the default. However, if the property has a parent property, the default is to inherit its choice.
In the same dashboard, the robots.txt report shows the files Google found, the last crawl and any errors. Also use URL Inspection on the pages that should answer customer questions. The full technical side, from crawling to rendering, belongs in a technical SEO audit.
How do you test presence in category questions?
Ask AI the questions customers ask before they know the brand, without naming it. Run each one several times, in a chat with no history, from your customers’ country and in their language. For a brand in Brazil, that means from Brazil and in Portuguese. Note whether the brand appears, whether the site becomes a source and which competitors and domains come up. A single check is not a diagnosis.
- Write 15 to 20 questions about category, problem and comparison, such as “qual a melhor escola de inglês online para adultos” (“what is the best online English school for adults”).
- Add 5 questions with the brand name, about price, offer and reputation, to check accuracy.
- Pick at least two engines. ChatGPT and Gemini are the minimum. In addition, Perplexity and AI Mode broaden the picture.
- Use Temporary Chat in ChatGPT and choose the Unpersonalized option before the first message. In other engines, use a temporary chat or an incognito window.
- Run each question 5 times per engine, on different days, and log each answer in its own spreadsheet row.
The category question is the most revealing test. A study by Professor Wilson Silva, of ESPM, a business school in Brazil, assessed 552 brands in four AIs. According to Mundo do Marketing, a Brazilian marketing outlet, 57% were not cited by any of them in questions about their own category. Silva is the founder of WS Labs, which offers a tool derived from the study.
Why does a free GEO audit repeat each question?
Repeating each question is mandatory because the answer changes with every run. In a SparkToro study, for example, the chance of ChatGPT repeating the same list of brands was below 1 in 100. The study involved Gumshoe.ai, a startup that sells AI tracking. Rand Fishkin, cofounder of SparkToro, explains:
“These tools are probability engines: they’re designed to generate unique answers every time.”
Rand Fishkin, SparkToro (2026)
The spreadsheet columns and the margin of error are in the guide on how to measure brand mentions and citations in AI.
How do you map the sources AI cites about your industry?
Gather the domains that appear as sources in the category test answers and count how often each one shows up. Then sort them by type: press, reviews, community, directory, competitor and your own site. Thus, the most frequent domains show where the brand needs to be to get into the answer.
Perplexity makes collection easier. According to the Perplexity Help Center, each answer includes numbered citations linking to the sources. Likewise, in ChatGPT, answers that use web search may include citations and the Sources button.
Most of this material comes from outside the brand’s site. In the May 2026 report by Muck Rack, about 84% of citations from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini came from earned media, such as journalism, research and encyclopedias. Muck Rack sells a public relations platform.
To see your own site’s side, use the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools. It shows your pages’ citations in Copilot, in Bing’s AI summaries and in select partners. It also includes a sample of the searches AI ran to find them. Similarly, in Google, the Generative AI performance report in Search Console shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
What to do with each type of domain is in the guide to the sources ChatGPT cites most.
How do you prioritize the fixes from a GEO audit?
Fix first what stops AI from reading the site, then what makes it get things wrong, and only then what’s missing. In other words, crawler blocks and pages missing from the index come before any new text. After all, they’re usually the cheapest fixes, and without them no new page reaches the answer.
| Finding | Priority | First step |
|---|---|---|
| Search crawler blocked | 1 | Allow it in robots.txt and the CDN |
| Key page missing from the index | 2 | Sitemap and URL inspection |
| Wrong information about the brand | 3 | Fix it at the cited source |
| Question with no answer on the site | 4 | Page with a direct answer |
| Brand missing from industry sources | 5 | Press, reviews and communities |
The first row is the fastest to apply. OpenAI mentions about 24 hours, and Perplexity up to 24 hours, for their systems to reflect a robots.txt change. After that, AI systems still need to crawl the page and choose it for the answer. Therefore, no fix has a guaranteed timeline.
For wrong information, ask whoever published the cited page to correct it and update your own site with the right data and the date. For unanswered questions, write pages with a direct answer at the start and sourced data. Finally, after fixing, run the GEO audit checklist again with the same questions and compare with the first round.
When does a manual audit stop being enough?
A free GEO audit works for diagnosing one brand. It stops being enough when measurement becomes a monthly routine, with more engines, competitors or clients. The category test in this GEO audit checklist alone, with 20 questions, 5 runs and 2 engines, already adds up to 200 answers to read and log.
With 50 questions, 5 runs and 4 engines, the monthly measurement protocol reaches 1,000 answers per brand. So an agency with ten clients would reach 10,000 answers a month.
In a Semrush survey of 481 marketers and business owners, 40% check brand presence by typing prompts into AI tools. Semrush, which sells an AI visibility tool, says the method works as a spot check but doesn’t scale or create data you can compare over time.
At that scale, collection moves to a GEO tool or a custom script. To compare free and paid options, see how to check your brand’s visibility in AI.
What we found when we analyzed 7 Portuguese-language GEO audit guides
We ran 15 searches about GEO audits and AI visibility audits. Then we gathered 7 guides in Portuguese that teach how to run the audit. Four come from Brazilian companies or consultants, and three are translations from foreign vendors. All come from sellers of SEO or GEO tools or services.
- Prompt tests: all 7 tell you to ask AIs questions, but none says how many times to run each question.
- Crawlers: 4 tell you to check robots.txt, but only 1 names OAI-SearchBot.
- Indexes: none includes Bing Webmaster Tools or the Search generative AI control in Search Console.
- Sources: 5 tell you to note the sources AI cites.
Frequently asked questions
No. An automated checker returns a ready-made score, which works as a starting point but not as a verdict. According to Google, no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems. On the other hand, a manual GEO audit checks each part with free tools, such as Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
The GEO audit checklist calls for 5 runs per question in each engine, on different days, in at least two engines. Repeating each question is mandatory because the answer changes with every run. In a SparkToro study, the chance of ChatGPT repeating the same list of brands was below 1 in 100.
Bing Webmaster Tools is free and imports sites already verified in Search Console, which is also free. In a free GEO audit, use the Sitemaps, URL Inspection and Robots.txt Tester features. In addition, the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools shows your pages’ citations in Copilot.
No fix has a guaranteed timeline. OpenAI mentions about 24 hours, and Perplexity up to 24 hours, for their systems to reflect a robots.txt change. After that, AI systems still need to crawl the page and choose it for the answer. So repeat the same questions and compare with the first round.
Want to know how your brand shows up in AI answers today?
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Main sources
- OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI Crawlers (2026).
- Bing Webmaster, Start Using Bing Webmaster Tools to Improve Your Site Visibility (2025).
- Google Search Central, Google’s Guide to Optimizing for Generative AI Features on Google Search (2026).
- SparkToro, research on how inconsistent AI brand recommendations are (2026).
- Mundo do Marketing, ESPM study of 552 brands, in Portuguese (2026).
- Semrush, survey of 481 professionals on SEO and AI search (2026).
