If AI can’t read your site, it can’t recommend you.
Most sites quietly block the AI crawlers — or give them nothing to read. Run a free, instant check of your robots.txt, sitemap, llms.txt and on-page basics to see whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI can even reach you. No sign-up.
Run an instant surface scan of your homepage. We check the on-page SEO basics and the three files that control whether search engines and AI crawlers can access and understand your site: robots.txt, sitemap.xml and llms.txt.
Surface scan of one page (your homepage). Not a full crawl — see below for what that means.
AI crawler access
We read your robots.txt and flag if GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended are blocked — the silent reason many sites never get cited in AI answers.
Discoverability
We confirm an XML sitemap exists (directly or via robots.txt) so engines can find all of your pages, not just the ones they stumble onto.
AI-readiness
We check for llms.txt — the emerging standard that hands AI assistants a curated map of your most important content. Most sites don’t have one yet.
We also check your title tag, meta description, H1, canonical, mobile viewport, HTTPS, structured data and Open Graph tags. It’s a fast, free first look — book a demo for a full-site audit and AI-citation tracking.
How to check if your site appears in AI search
There are two questions hiding inside "does my site appear in AI search?" — and you need both answered. First: can AI engines reach and read your site at all? Second: are they actually citing you in their answers? The free check above handles the first in seconds — it reads your robots.txt, sitemap.xml and llms.txt and flags whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended can crawl you. If they're blocked, you will never appear, no matter how good your content is.
Once you know AI engines can reach you, the next step is confirming you're actually being cited. Below are the fastest manual checks for each major AI engine, the most common reasons sites stay invisible, and how to fix them.
How to check each AI engine by hand
Ask the same question your customers would ask, then look at whether your domain is named or linked in the answer:
- ChatGPT (with search on): Ask "what are the best [your category] tools?" or "tell me about [your brand]." When ChatGPT browses, it shows cited sources as links — check whether your domain is among them.
- Perplexity: Every answer lists numbered sources at the top. Search a query you want to win and see if your URL appears. Perplexity is the quickest place to confirm citations.
- Google AI Overviews: Search your target query in Google (logged out / incognito). If an AI Overview appears, expand the cited links and look for your domain.
- Gemini & Microsoft Copilot: Ask the same brand and category questions — both surface linked sources you can scan for your site.
No mentions anywhere? That usually points to a crawlability or authority gap — keep reading.
Why your site might not appear in AI search
The most common reasons a site never shows up in AI answers:
- AI crawlers are blocked. A single line in robots.txt disallowing GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended makes you invisible to that engine. The free checker flags this instantly.
- No sitemap or llms.txt. Without a sitemap, engines miss pages; without an llms.txt you're not handing AI assistants a curated map of your best content.
- Thin or unstructured content. AI engines cite clear, well-structured, factual content. Pages with no headings, schema or direct answers rarely get pulled into responses.
- Weak entity authority. Models cite sources they "trust" — brands with consistent mentions, reviews and citations across the web. Few external signals means few AI citations.
How to get your site to appear in AI search
Once you know where the gap is, the fixes are concrete:
- Unblock AI crawlers in robots.txt and confirm a working sitemap.
- Add structured data and an llms.txt so engines can parse and prioritise your content.
- Write citable content — direct answers, clear headings, FAQs and data. See our guides on answer engine optimization, generative engine optimization and Google AI Overviews.
- Build entity authority through consistent mentions, reviews and digital PR.
Want this tracked continuously instead of checked by hand? Aergos AI Visibility monitors whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI cite you across the prompts that matter, and turns the gaps into an action plan. Book a demo, or read the full walkthrough: how to check if your website appears in AI search results.