What is AI visibility?
AI visibility is how well AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity can crawl, read, understand and recommend your website. It's different from Google rankings: a site can rank well in search and still be invisible to AI if crawlers are blocked or the content isn't machine-readable. Check yours in 30 seconds.
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?
AEO is the practice of making your business readable, understandable and recommendable by AI systems that answer questions directly, instead of returning a list of links. Where SEO aims to rank in search results, AEO aims to be the answer the AI gives. AEO vs SEO explained.
What is GEO and how is it different from SEO?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is another name for optimizing to appear in AI-generated answers. In practice GEO, AEO and SEO overlap heavily on fundamentals, but the AI side adds requirements SEO never had: AI crawler access, content that survives without JavaScript, and files like llms.txt.
What is an llms.txt file?
An llms.txt file is a plain-text file at your website's root that gives AI models a clean summary of your business. It's like robots.txt, but instead of controlling crawler access it tells AI systems what your site is about, which helps them describe and recommend you accurately. Generate one free.
Which AI crawlers should my site allow?
The main ones are GPTBot (OpenAI/ChatGPT), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot, Google-Extended (Gemini) and CCBot (Common Crawl). For most businesses that want to be recommended by AI, you should allow all of them in robots.txt and make sure your firewall isn't blocking them. How to check.
Why isn't my business showing up in ChatGPT?
Usually one of five fixable reasons: your site blocks AI crawlers in robots.txt or via firewall, your content only renders with JavaScript so AI sees an empty page, you have no structured data, you have no llms.txt file, or your business has weak entity signals across the web. Most sites fail at least two of these. See all five reasons.
Can ChatGPT actually read my website?
Not always. Most AI crawlers read your raw HTML and don't run JavaScript, so if your content loads dynamically, ChatGPT may see a nearly blank page even though your site looks fine to visitors. The quick check: right-click your page, choose View Page Source, and search for your own text. If it isn't there, AI can't read it either. The full 5-test guide.
Why does AI describe my business incorrectly?
AI describes you wrong when it has to guess. Missing or invalid schema markup, no llms.txt, and inconsistent business information across the web all force AI to piece together a picture from unreliable signals, which is how it ends up with the wrong city, prices or offering. Clear structured data and an llms.txt fix most of this.
Is my site blocking AI crawlers without me knowing?
It's common. Many sites block AI crawlers through an SEO plugin toggle set years ago, or through a firewall or CDN setting like Cloudflare's block-AI-bots option, even when robots.txt looks fine. The only reliable way to know is to fetch your site the way a bot does and check the response. How to test it.
Can AI read my site if my content loads with JavaScript?
Often not. Googlebot renders JavaScript, but most AI crawlers do not. If your prices, services or booking flow only appear after JavaScript runs, AI crawlers may see a nearly empty page. Server-side rendering or making sure key content exists in the raw HTML solves this.
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Scan My Site FreeHow do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
Make your business readable to AI: allow AI crawlers in robots.txt and your firewall, keep key content in raw HTML rather than JavaScript-only widgets, add schema markup with your prices and location, publish an llms.txt file, and keep your name, address and description consistent across the web. Then test monthly by asking ChatGPT your customers' questions.
How do I check if AI can read my website?
Run a free AI visibility scan at rankinai.tech. In about 30 seconds it checks whether AI crawlers can access your site, whether your content survives without JavaScript, whether you have schema and llms.txt, and gives you a 0 to 100 score with exact fixes. You can also spot-check manually via View Page Source. Run the free scan.
How do I create and add an llms.txt file?
Write a short plain-text file summarizing your business (what you do, what you offer, contact details) and upload it to your website's root so it loads at yoursite.com/llms.txt, the same place as robots.txt. RankInAI has a free llms.txt generator that writes the file for you in about 60 seconds.
How do I add schema markup for AI?
Add schema.org JSON-LD to your pages describing what you are, for example Organization, LocalBusiness, Hotel, Product or FAQPage, including facts like prices and location. AI systems use this structured data to understand and quote your business accurately. Validate it with Google's Rich Results Test after adding it.
How do I know if GPTBot is blocked on my site?
Check two places. First open yoursite.com/robots.txt and look for GPTBot under a Disallow rule. Second, test your firewall by sending a request with GPTBot's user-agent and confirming you get a 200 response, not a 403. A clean robots.txt means nothing if your CDN is blocking the bot underneath it. Step-by-step guide.
AEO vs SEO: what actually changed?
SEO optimizes your site to rank in a list of links; AEO optimizes your business to be the answer when AI responds directly. The fundamentals overlap, but AEO adds new requirements (AI crawler access, llms.txt, JavaScript-free content) and changes the goal from earning a click to being cited, often with no click at all. Full comparison.
Is SEO dead because of AI?
No. Google still drives enormous traffic, and much of the same hygiene helps both. What's changing is that ranking and being found are no longer the same thing. A growing share of buying questions get answered inside AI assistants with zero clicks, so businesses now need to be visible in both places.
Does llms.txt actually help AI visibility?
It's an emerging standard, so it isn't a guaranteed ranking lever, but it costs nothing and takes minutes. An llms.txt file gives AI models a clean, plain-text summary of your business, which removes the guesswork that leads to AI describing you wrong. In a RankInAI study of 46 famous hotels, zero had one, so it's currently an easy way to stand out.
How long until AI starts recommending my business after I fix my site?
AI systems that fetch live pages, like ChatGPT's browsing mode, can reflect fixes within days to weeks. Answers drawn from a model's training data update more slowly, over months. Fixing crawler access and structured data first affects the live-search path, which is where most buying questions get answered.
How is RankInAI different from Semrush or other SEO tools?
SEO tools measure how you rank in Google's blue links. RankInAI measures whether AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity can read, understand and recommend your business. Ranking number one on Google means nothing if AI answers the customer's question before they ever see the results page.