How we audit AI visibility: the 42-point check, area by area

An AI visibility audit checks two things: whether generative engines can crawl your site and understand what it is about, and whether they cite you when someone asks about your category. We run one for free using the 42-point check, our audit method of 42 checks grouped into five sections. Our system scores every point on evidence, and a second AI checks every sentence before you see it. It usually takes under an hour, there is no mandatory call, and what you get back is a score out of 42 with the failures ordered by how expensive they are to fix. The full rubric is below, section by section, in case you would rather run it yourself.

What does an AI visibility audit actually check?

It does not check rankings. A generative engine does not hand you a position in a list — it composes an answer and cites three to five sources. Either you are among those sources or you do not exist for that question.

That splits the audit in half:

• Can they reach you? Every engine crawls with its own agent and documents how to allow or block it: OpenAI publishes theirs, Perplexity documents theirs, and Anthropic explains its own. An inherited robots.txt that excludes them is a common, silent failure.
• Can they use you? Even when they crawl you, the engine lifts blocks — a definition, a list, an answer to a question — not whole pages. If your page has no liftable blocks, there is nothing to cite.

The context that makes this matter: in the first four months of 2026, 68.01% of US Google searches ended without a single click, up from 60.45% in 2024. The answer is increasingly consumed where it is generated.

Why 42 points instead of a single score?

Because a single number is not actionable. Each of the 42 points is scored pass or fail, so the output tells you what to fix rather than how badly you are doing.

And because each point needs proof. Some of them are judgment calls, like these:

• Whether your FAQ block answers the question a buyer actually asks, or one the marketing team invented.
• Whether your service pages say plainly what you do and which towns you serve.
• Whether the business listed in three directories is the same business, with the same name and the same address.

Here is how the diagnosis works. First we identify what type of business you are: a local business, an online store, software or an app, or a B2B and professional-services firm. Twenty-four checks apply to everyone and eighteen depend on your type, because a taquería and a SaaS product do not win customers the same way. Our system then collects the evidence: your site and a sample of its pages, your social profiles, your Google Business Profile, your rank on Google and Google Maps, your listings and mentions, and what ChatGPT and Claude answer when a customer asks for a recommendation. Each point is scored pass or fail, and a point is only awarded with evidence. If our own tools could not verify a point, it is left out of the score and labeled "could not confirm"; your score is what you passed out of what we measured, scaled to 42. Finally, a second AI checks every sentence of the report against the evidence. The whole process usually takes under an hour.

What do the site-foundation points check?

If an engine cannot crawl, parse or trust your site, nothing else matters. Every business is checked for HTTPS, mobile speed (the PageSpeed score, or real-user Core Web Vitals when Google has them), whether your text is in the HTML that crawlers read, whether robots.txt lets the AI crawlers in, a sitemap and an llms.txt. Online stores add product markup with price and stock, and software adds SoftwareApplication markup.

What do the first-impression and conversion points check?

A visitor has to understand what you do and reach you without effort. We check your title and main heading, one-tap contact by call, WhatsApp or form, and broken links. Then the type decides: a local business needs directions and prices, a store needs shipping costs and payment methods on view, software needs a pricing page and a free trial, and a B2B firm needs a process and a way to book a call.

What do the social-proof points check?

Nobody buys on claims. We look for testimonials with names, the people behind the business and a published privacy notice. Then we check the review platform that matters for your type: Google reviews against your local leaders, the business and industry directories your buyers use for B2B, G2 or Capterra for software, and product reviews for stores.

What do the social-profile points check?

Your profiles are part of the same entity. We check that your site links at least two of them, that each one exists, and that the profiles we can read link back to your site. We also check that your link looks right when someone shares it: an Open Graph title, description and image of at least 1200 by 630 pixels.

What do the search and AI-visibility points check?

This is where you find out whether you are being recommended. We ask ChatGPT and Claude the questions your customers ask and check whether they name you, and we measure your Google rank. We also check structured data that names your business and links its profiles, a blog or articles section with enough posts to rank, and third-party mentions. Local businesses add Google Business Profile and Maps checks; software adds comparison, use-case and documentation pages.

What do the measurement points check?

Without measurement, nobody can tell whether the work is paying off. We check that analytics is installed, that you track actions such as contacts, purchases or signups, and that an ad pixel is ready. We read your pages, your own scripts and your public Tag Manager container, so a tag loaded through GTM still counts. Stores add ecommerce events, and B2B firms add email deliverability through SPF and DMARC.

What can you audit yourself today?

In an afternoon, with no paid tools:

• Open yourdomain.com/llms.txt. If it 404s, that is your first lost point.
• Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for the agents each engine documents. Confirm you are not blocking them by accident.
• Take your five most important pages and count how many H2s are question-shaped.
• Search your business name in three directories and compare name, address and URL character by character.
• Ask an engine the five queries your best customer would ask, and note which sources it cites.

The full 42-point checklist is downloadable and is the same one we use. A careful pass takes you three to four hours.

What do you get, and how long does it take?

The free diagnosis returns four things:

• Your score out of 42, area by area, for your type of business.
• The concrete failures we found, ordered by cost to fix.
• What changes for your business once each fix is done.
• The competitors beating you on Google and in AI answers.

The report does not include a price. If you reply and want us to do the work, we send a written plan with a fixed monthly price.

Free, usually in under an hour, with no mandatory call.