GEO audit vs SEO audit
SEO aims for a ranked link on a results page. GEO aims for a mention inside an AI-written answer. The two overlap (crawlable pages, clear titles, structured data), but GEO adds a second front: the third-party pages that AI answers cite. When an assistant answers “best X for Y” with web search on, it often builds the answer from a handful of listicles, review sites and forum threads, so being on those pages matters as much as your own.
GEO audit checklist: your site
- robots.txt: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot are allowed (or blocked on purpose).
- Server-rendered text: the main description is in the HTML, not injected by JavaScript.
- Title and meta description: say plainly what the product is and who it is for.
- JSON-LD: Organization plus Product or SoftwareApplication, with a real description.
- sitemap.xml listing your important pages, and optionally llms.txt with a short summary.
- Answer-shaped pages: pages that answer the questions buyers ask (comparisons, use cases, pricing) in plain language.
GEO audit checklist: off-site
- Which “best X” lists in your category get cited, and are you on them?
- Which Reddit or forum threads get cited, and is there a helpful, disclosed answer from you?
- Are you listed, with complete details, on the directories and review sites that get cited?
- Which competitors are named most often, and which of their pages are cited?
Measuring the results of a GEO audit
A GEO audit needs real answers, not guesses. The free AI visibility checker asks OpenAI and Gemini models buyer-style questions with web search on and lists every cited page with a suggested action. Because answers vary, the full report repeats each question and reports rates. For the full step-by-step process, see the AI visibility audit guide.
What a GEO audit won’t do
It won’t reveal how a model ranks sources internally, and API answers differ from the consumer apps. No audit can promise a mention. What it gives you is a short, evidence-based list of pages and fixes to work on.