Free GEO Audit Tools: A Step-by-Step Self-Audit

You can run a complete GEO audit for free by combining a handful of tools: the free GEO check for an overall score, an AI crawler check and robots.txt generator for access, a citability checker for your key passages, an llms.txt generator, and Google Search Console, the Rich Results Test and Bing Webmaster Tools for indexing and structured data. Work through the nine steps below in order and you end up with a prioritized fix list without paying for a platform. What a free audit cannot show is how your AI mentions develop over time; that needs repeated prompt runs.

GEO here means Generative Engine Optimization: making your website readable and quotable for AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. It is not about geodata or local listings.

This guide is the hands-on version. If you want to compare assessment tools and plan the workflow across a team, including paid monitoring trials, read GEO assessment tools compared.

The free GEO audit toolkit at a glance

Tool	What it checks	Signup
GEO check	GEO Score 0 to 100 for one page: crawler access, structure, schema, citability	No
AI crawler check	Which AI crawlers your robots.txt blocks	No, runs in the browser
robots.txt generator	Writes the rules for the AI crawlers you choose	No
Citability checker	Whether a passage can be quoted: answer first, lists, tables, evidence, freshness	No, runs in the browser
llms.txt generator	Creates an llms.txt that points models to your key pages	No
Google Search Console	Indexing, URL inspection, search performance	Google account, verified site
Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator	Structured data errors	No
Bing Webmaster Tools	Indexing and crawl status in Bing	Microsoft account, verified site

Before you start: pages and questions

An audit of everything is an audit of nothing. Write down:

• Five key pages: homepage, the main product or service page, pricing, one comparison page and your best-performing guide.
• Ten buyer questions that these pages should answer, in the language of your market, for example "Which [category] tool is best for [use case]?".

Keep one spreadsheet with a row per page and a column per step. Every step below adds one column.

Step 1: Get a baseline score

Run your most important page through the free GEO check. It takes under a minute and needs no signup. The score bands: 90 and above is excellent, 75 to 89 good, 55 to 74 satisfactory, below 55 poor. Note the score and the listed quick wins; they tell you which of the next steps will produce the most findings. The score measures readiness, not how often AI answers actually mention you.

Step 2: Check which AI crawlers may read your site

Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt, paste it into the AI crawler check and look at each bot separately. The ones that matter most:

• GPTBot collects training data for OpenAI models. OAI-SearchBot builds the index behind ChatGPT search. ChatGPT-User fetches pages when a user asks for them. OpenAI documents all three on its crawler overview.
• ClaudeBot (Anthropic) and PerplexityBot (Perplexity).
• Google-Extended only controls use for Gemini training and grounding. It does not affect Google Search or AI Overviews, which run on Googlebot (Google's crawler list).

robots.txt is a request, not a lock. A firewall or CDN bot filter can still reject AI crawlers. Test the response with the bot's user agent:

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" -A "PerplexityBot" https://www.example.com/

200 is fine. 403 or 429 means something in front of your site blocks the user agent, independent of robots.txt. This test only catches user-agent rules; filters based on verified IP ranges will not show up.

Step 3: Fix the robots.txt

If step 2 found blocks you did not intend, use the robots.txt generator: tick which crawlers may read, copy the result. Add the generated blocks to your existing file instead of replacing it, so your rules for Googlebot, Bingbot and private directories stay intact. If you want to stay out of model training but still be cited, block GPTBot and allow OAI-SearchBot.

Step 4: Confirm the content is in the HTML

Many AI crawlers do not render JavaScript. If your main text is loaded by a script, they see an empty page. Check each key page with one line:

curl -s https://www.example.com/pricing | grep -c "a sentence from your main text"

A result of 0 means the sentence is missing from the delivered HTML. For comparison, the URL Inspection tool in Search Console shows the HTML that Googlebot saw after rendering. If Google sees the text and curl does not, your content depends on JavaScript.

Step 5: Score the citability of key passages

Paste the HTML or the main section of each key page into the citability checker. It applies the same scoring as the content half of the GEO Score. From 75 upward a passage is readily quotable; below 50 the clear answer at the start is usually missing.

A typical rewrite looks like this:

• Before: "Choosing the right plan depends on many factors, and every business is different. In this section we look at what matters."
• After: "The Team plan fits companies with 5 to 50 users; above 50 users, the Enterprise plan adds single sign-on and a dedicated contact."

The second version stands on its own. A model can lift it into an answer without the surrounding text.

Step 6: Validate structured data and brand facts

Run each key page through the Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator. At minimum, the site should describe your company as an Organization with name, URL, logo and links to official profiles. Then ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini directly: "What is [brand]?" and "What does [brand] cost?". Write down every wrong or outdated fact and the page that should correct it.

Step 7: Add an llms.txt (optional)

An llms.txt is a short Markdown file at the root of your domain that tells language models which of your pages are authoritative. The format is a community proposal documented at llmstxt.org, not a Google standard, so treat it as a small extra. The llms.txt generator builds the file from your site description and key pages. Do this only after steps 2 to 4; access comes first.

Step 8: Check indexing in Google and Bing

In Search Console, use URL Inspection for each key page and confirm it is indexed. Google counts traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode within the regular "Web" search type of the Performance report rather than in a separate report (Google Search Central on AI features), so you cannot isolate AI traffic there. In Bing Webmaster Tools, verify the site and check that the key pages are indexed, so AI features that rely on Bing results can find them.

Step 9: Run a manual prompt spot check

Take your ten buyer questions and ask each one in the AI systems your buyers use. Record per answer: brand mentioned or not, competitors named, sources cited, wrong statements. Ask each question at least twice, because answers vary between runs. This is not monitoring, but it gives you a baseline to compare against after the fixes.

Turning the results into a fix list

Sort the findings in this order, because each level blocks the next:

1. Crawler blocks and pages whose content is missing from the HTML.
2. Wrong facts about your brand in AI answers.
3. Key pages that bury the answer (citability below 50).
4. Structured data errors and inconsistent company names.
5. llms.txt and other optional additions.

Repeat steps 1, 5 and 9 a few weeks after the fixes are live and compare the numbers in your spreadsheet.

What a free audit cannot tell you

A self-audit covers a few pages and one point in time. It does not show how mentions develop week by week, who gets cited instead of you across a full prompt set, or which templates break across a large site. For the workflow and tool options beyond free tools, see GEO assessment tools compared. For a full-site review with competitor citation benchmark and a prioritized roadmap, request a professional GEO audit; pricing is on request.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free GEO audit tool?

Yes. The GEO check at geo-tool.com scores a page from 0 to 100 without signup, and the AI crawler check, robots.txt generator, llms.txt generator and citability checker on the same site are free. Combined with Google Search Console, the Rich Results Test and Bing Webmaster Tools, they cover a complete self-audit.

What does a GEO audit check?

A GEO audit checks whether AI crawlers may read your pages, whether the content is in the HTML without JavaScript, whether key passages are quotable, whether structured data and brand facts are consistent, whether the pages are indexed, and what AI systems currently say about your brand.

Does blocking GPTBot remove my site from ChatGPT answers?

Not necessarily. OpenAI separates GPTBot, which collects training data, from OAI-SearchBot, which builds the index for ChatGPT search. You can block GPTBot and still allow OAI-SearchBot. Blocking both removes the main way ChatGPT search reads your site.

Does blocking Google-Extended remove me from AI Overviews?

No. Google-Extended only controls use for Gemini training and grounding. AI Overviews and AI Mode run on the normal Googlebot crawl, so blocking Google-Extended does not take you out of them.

Do I need an llms.txt file for a GEO audit?

No. llms.txt is an optional proposal, not a Google standard. It can help models find your most important pages, but robots.txt access and content in the HTML matter far more. Add it after the access and content steps are done.

Is the GEO Score the same as being mentioned in AI answers?

No. The GEO Score measures readiness: crawler access, structure, schema and citability. Whether AI systems actually mention you is an outcome you check with repeated prompt runs. A high score makes mentions possible; it does not guarantee them.

How often should I repeat a free GEO audit?

Repeat the technical steps after every relaunch, CMS update or change to robots.txt or CDN settings, and run the prompt spot check every few weeks. A quarterly full pass is a sensible minimum for most sites.