Free SEO tools/AEO Grader
Updated 26 Oct 2026Free AEO Grader
Is your page ready to be found and quoted by ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Claude? Twelve checks, a score out of 100, and the exact fix for each. No signup.
The result
Is your page ready for AI search?
This free AEO grader runs 12 checks on one page and gives it an AEO and GEO score out of 100: can ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Claude reach the page, read it, tell who is behind it, and quote it? Every check shows the proof and the fix.
It reads the page the way AI crawlers do: as plain HTML, without running JavaScript, under the rules in your robots.txt. It also opens the page with two real AI crawler user agents to spot firewalls that turn them away.
It keeps what is confirmed apart from what is only believed. Google says AI features need a page that is indexed and eligible to show with a snippet (Google); that check carries the most points. llms.txt, which Google says Search ignores (Google), is shown but never counted.
A real grade for python.org: 74 out of 100, grade B. Crawlers can reach and read it, but it has no sitemap, no Organization markup and five H1 headings.
How to use it
Run a free AEO audit in five steps
Under a minute, one address.
- 1Paste the page you want graded
Any public page, for example yoursite.com/blog/your-post. Grade the page you want quoted, not only your homepage.
- 2Press Grade my page
We open it as a browser and as two AI crawlers, and read its robots.txt, sitemap, homepage and llms.txt. It takes about 5 to 20 seconds.
- 3Read the result first
One line tells you whether the page is ready, then the score, the grade and one tag per check, problems first.
- 4Fix the rows marked Fix, then Improve
They are sorted with the hard blocks first (indexing, crawlers, firewall, JavaScript), then by the points they cost.
- 5Grade it again
After a change, run it again. The same page reuses its result for 10 minutes, so wait a little after a fix.
Your report, explained
What each part of the report means
Part 1, Reach, for python.org, numbered. Every part works the same way.
123456- 1The part
The 12 checks sit in five parts: Reach, Read, Recognise, Quote and Trust. Each part asks one plain question.
- 2Points for the part
How many of the part’s points the page earned. Reach is worth the most, because nothing else matters if AI cannot get to the page.
- 3One check
A yes-or-no fact we measured, with a coloured dot: green passed, amber improve, red fix, grey not counted on this kind of page.
- 4Points for the check
A pass earns all its points, an improve earns half, a fix earns none.
- 5How sure we are
Each check says what backs it: confirmed by Google or the AI company, best practice, a lab study, or industry belief.
- 6Crawler by crawler
Each AI search crawler, the robots.txt rule that decides it for this exact page, and whether it is allowed.
The rest of the report:
- Result at a glanceOne line, the score out of 100, one tag per check and the fixes in order.
- Part 2: ReadWhether the main text is in the raw HTML, the first 150 words a crawler sees, and whether the page is in your sitemap.
- Part 3: RecogniseThe structured data types on the page, and who is behind the site.
- Part 4: QuoteWhether the page opens with a direct answer, its outline, and whether facts come with sources.
- Part 5: TrustAuthor and date, plus what is shown but not counted: llms.txt, training crawlers and FAQ markup.
How it works
How the AEO / GEO score is calculated
Twelve checks, 100 points, every weight shown.
| Check | Points | What we look at | Backed by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page can be indexed and quoted · Reach | 15 | Status 200; no noindex, nosnippet or max-snippet:0 in the robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header | Confirmed by Google |
| AI search crawlers are allowed · Reach | 12 | robots.txt, read for this exact page, for OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Googlebot and Bingbot | Confirmed by the crawler owners |
| AI crawlers get the same page · Reach | 8 | The page opened as OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, compared with a normal browser | Best practice |
| Main text is in the raw HTML · Read | 15 | Words of main content without JavaScript: 200 or more passes, 50 to 199 is improve | Crawler log study |
| Page is in your sitemap · Read | 5 | Sitemap from robots.txt or /sitemap.xml, up to 5 files | Best practice |
| Structured data is valid · Recognise | 7 | JSON-LD parses and names the page type | Best practice (Google) |
| Who is behind the site is clear · Recognise | 8 | Organization or LocalBusiness markup with a name and profile links, here or on the homepage | Industry belief |
| Opens with a direct answer · Quote | 8 | The first paragraph, and the paragraph after each question heading, is a 15 to 80 word plain answer | Industry belief |
| Clear headings and lists · Quote | 6 | One H1, plus lists, tables or question headings | Best practice |
| Facts with sources · Quote | 6 | Figures or dates and at least one link to another site in the main text | Lab study (GEO, 2024) |
| Author is named · Trust | 5 | Byline, author link or author in the markup. Articles only | Best practice (Google) |
| Dated and recent · Trust | 5 | A published or updated date within 12 months. Not on homepages or product pages | Industry belief |
Pass, improve or fix
A pass earns all the points, an improve half, a fix none. A check that does not apply to the page, such as an author on a homepage, is left out and the score is worked out from the rest.
Two hard limits
If the page cannot be indexed or quoted, the score stops at 25. If robots.txt blocks both ChatGPT search and Google, it stops at 40. A page with perfect markup but a noindex tag should never look ready.
Grades: A is 85 or more (ready), B 70 to 84, C 55 to 69, D 40 to 54, F under 40. The weights are our judgement, set so the documented gates count most.
Evidence
What AI engines have confirmed, and what they haven’t
Plenty of AEO advice is guesswork. This is what the companies say themselves.
| Claim | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Pages must be indexed and allowed a snippet to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode | Confirmed | |
| There are no extra requirements or special optimisation for Google’s AI features | Confirmed | |
| Sites that block OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers | Confirmed | OpenAI |
| Blocking Claude-SearchBot stops Anthropic indexing the content for search | Confirmed | Anthropic |
| PerplexityBot powers Perplexity search links and is not used to train models | Confirmed | Perplexity |
| Google-Extended does not affect inclusion in Google Search | Confirmed | |
| Google Search ignores llms.txt; it neither helps nor harms | Confirmed | |
| FAQ rich results no longer appear in Google Search (since 7 May 2026) | Confirmed | |
| ChatGPT’s and Claude’s crawlers do not run JavaScript | Crawler log study | Vercel |
| Adding sources, quotes and statistics raised visibility in generative answers by up to 40% | Lab study only | GEO paper, KDD 2024 |
| AI prefers 40 to 60 word answers, or pages updated in the last 90 days | Not confirmed by any engine | — |
AEO, GEO and SEO
Google says that, from its side, optimising for generative AI search is optimising for search, “and thus still SEO” (Google). AEO and GEO are names for the parts that matter most when AI answers for you.
Write for people
Google says its systems prioritise helpful, reliable content created to benefit people, and that of experience, expertise, authority and trust, trust matters most (Google).
Improve it
How to improve your AEO score
In the order the report sorts them: hard blocks first.
- 1Unblock the search crawlers
Remove Disallow rules for OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot. Training crawlers such as GPTBot are your choice. Our robots.txt checker shows every rule.
- 2Put the main text in the HTML
If the page builds its text with JavaScript, render it on the server so crawlers that do not run scripts can read it.
- 3Lead with the answer
Open the page, and each question heading, with one to three plain sentences that answer it, then add detail.
- 4Back facts with sources
Give the figure and link to where it comes from. In the GEO study, citing sources, adding quotes and adding statistics worked best.
- 5Say who you are
Add Organization or LocalBusiness markup with your name, logo and profile links. Our Schema Markup Generator writes it.
Snippable content
Microsoft says AI systems extract concise, “snippable” pieces of content and weave them into answers, and recommends clear headings, lists and tables (Microsoft).
Limits
What this tool can’t do
Clear limits, so you know what the grade is and what it isn’t.
Use it to
- Find what stops AI search crawlers reaching a page
- See the page as a crawler that does not run JavaScript
- Check indexing and snippet rules
- Check structured data and who is behind the site
- Check answer-first writing, headings and sources
- Share the grade or save it as a PDF
It won’t
- Not a citation test. It measures readiness, not whether AI cites you. Use the AI Visibility Checker for that.
- One page. It grades one page plus its robots.txt, sitemap and homepage, not your whole site.
- No login, no JavaScript. We see what a crawler sees. Pages behind a login, or built only by JavaScript, show as empty.
- Firewalls can differ. Some firewalls block anything calling itself a crawler but let the real, verified one through.
- Sites that block tools. Large sites that refuse automated checks cannot be graded.
- Judgement in the weights. The points per check are our judgement, shown in full above.
Next steps
What to do with your grade
Start with the red rows. A page AI cannot reach or read scores low however good the writing is.
Then work through the amber rows that cost the most points. Most are small edits: a robots.txt line, a sitemap entry, a block of markup or a clearer first paragraph.
When the page grades well, the question becomes whether AI chooses it. That depends on what other sites say about you, which the AI Visibility Checker shows.
Your next step, by result
Move the main text into the HTML with server-side rendering.
Add the right JSON-LD and Organization markup.
Check what AI actually says and which sites it relies on instead.
Want your pages cited by AI?
Our team does AI search and technical SEO work every day for businesses in the US and UK.
FAQs
AEO grader FAQs
What is an AEO grader?
An AEO grader checks whether a page is ready to be found and quoted by answer engines such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Claude. This one runs 12 checks in five parts and gives a score out of 100, with the proof and the fix for each check.
What is the difference between AEO, GEO and SEO?
AEO (answer engine optimisation) and GEO (generative engine optimisation) are names for making content easy for AI answers to find and quote. Google says that, for its AI features, this is still SEO: the same basics of crawlable, indexable, helpful pages.
How is the AEO score calculated?
Each of the 12 checks has points, 100 in all. A pass earns all of them, an improve half, a fix none, and checks that do not apply are left out. If the page cannot be indexed the score stops at 25, and if ChatGPT search and Google are both blocked it stops at 40.
What is a good AEO score?
85 or more is grade A, ready for AI search. 70 to 84 is a B, mostly ready. Under 40 means something important is blocking AI engines. Fix the red rows first; they are the ones that block AI completely.
Is this AEO checker free?
Yes. It is free with no sign-up and no API key. Each visitor can grade 40 pages a day, and the same page reuses its result for 10 minutes.
Does a high score mean ChatGPT will cite me?
No. A high score means AI engines can reach, read and quote the page. Whether they choose it depends on authority, what other sites say about you and the competition. The AI Visibility Checker shows what AI actually says.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
It is optional. Google says Google Search ignores llms.txt and that it neither helps nor harms. No major AI search engine has said publicly that it uses the file for answers, so we show it but never count it.
Should I block GPTBot?
That is your choice. GPTBot collects data for training. Blocking it does not remove you from ChatGPT search, which uses OAI-SearchBot. The grader only counts the search and answer crawlers, and lists training crawlers separately.
Do I need special schema for Google AI Overviews?
No. Google says no special schema.org markup is needed for its AI features. Structured data still helps search engines understand a page and must match what is visible on it. FAQ rich results no longer appear in Google Search.
Why does JavaScript matter for AI crawlers?
Vercel’s study of AI crawler traffic found that ChatGPT’s and Claude’s crawlers do not run JavaScript. If your text only appears after scripts run, those crawlers see an almost empty page.
Can I check a competitor’s page?
Yes. Paste any public page. Comparing your page with one that AI already quotes is a quick way to see what is missing.
How is this different from HubSpot’s AEO Grader?
HubSpot’s grader looks at how AI describes your brand. This grader checks one page: whether AI engines can reach, read and quote it, with every check, weight and source shown.
Sources
- Google Search CentralAI features and your website
- Google Search CentralOptimizing for generative AI search
- Google Search CentralCreating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Google Search CentralGeneral structured data guidelines
- Google Search CentralSearch updates (FAQ rich results removed)
- Google Search CentralGoogle common crawlers (Google-Extended)
- OpenAIOverview of OpenAI crawlers
- AnthropicAnthropic crawlers and how to block them
- PerplexityPerplexity crawlers
- IETFRFC 9309: Robots Exclusion Protocol
- Aggarwal et al.GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (KDD 2024)
- VercelThe rise of the AI crawler
- Microsoft AdvertisingOptimizing content for AI search answers
- llmstxt.orgThe /llms.txt file proposal
More free tools
More free AI search tools
Readiness is step one. These cover the rest.