How the AI Visibility Audit Works
AI Citation Analysis runs a free AI visibility audit on your public website: we crawl what's publicly accessible, extract the evidence AI systems look for, and evaluate it against the C-I-T-E-D framework.
It's a readiness audit, not a citation tracker. We don't query ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, and we can't tell you whether they've actually cited you, only how clearly your site currently presents the evidence they'd need to.
Your Website
The public pages you submit for the audit
Crawl
Up to 50 pages, read the way an AI crawler would
Evidence
Business identity, services, trust signals, and more
C-I-T-E-D
117+ checks scored across 5 categories
Report
Findings, evidence, and what to fix first
The Six-Step Diagnostic Flow
From crawling your site to a clear, actionable report, here's how AI Citation Analysis works.
Website Submitted
You enter your website's URL. No account or code install is required.
Website Crawled
We fetch up to 50 publicly accessible pages, the way an AI crawler would.
Evidence Extracted
We pull concrete facts: business identity, services, contact details, structured data, and more.
Rules Evaluated
Each piece of evidence is checked against a specific rule for clarity and consistency.
C-I-T-E-D Findings Organized
Results are grouped into Clarity, Identity, Trust, Expertise, and Discoverability.
Report Generated
You get a scored breakdown with plain-English findings and what to fix first.
Website Submitted
You enter your website's URL. No account or code install is required.
Website Crawled
We fetch up to 50 publicly accessible pages, the way an AI crawler would.
Evidence Extracted
We pull concrete facts: business identity, services, contact details, structured data, and more.
Rules Evaluated
Each piece of evidence is checked against a specific rule for clarity and consistency.
C-I-T-E-D Findings Organized
Results are grouped into Clarity, Identity, Trust, Expertise, and Discoverability.
Report Generated
You get a scored breakdown with plain-English findings and what to fix first.
Key Evidence Extracted From Your Website
We analyze your publicly accessible content for the structured information AI systems rely on to understand your business.
Your Website
Business Identity
Official name, entity details
Services & Offerings
Service descriptions, deliverables, and scope
Locations & Service Areas
Physical locations and coverage areas
Contact Information
Phone, email, and contact pages
Trust Signals
Licenses, accreditations, policies, and more
Structured Data
Schema.org markup
FAQ Content
Published questions and answers
Navigation & Links
Internal structure and important pages
Five Dimensions of Website Readiness
We evaluate your website using the C-I-T-E-D framework, five categories that determine how clearly and reliably your business information can be understood by AI systems.
Learn more about AI Citation AnalysisClarity
Are your services, offerings, and locations stated as explicit, crawlable facts rather than implied by marketing language?
Identity
Can your official business name, primary location, and contact channels be confirmed without confusing you with another entity?
Trust
Are the proof points AI systems look for, licenses, reviews, policies, guarantees, actually published and findable?
Expertise
Does your content show real, demonstrable depth: history, case studies, named authors, and specifics rather than generic claims?
Discoverability
Is your public data organized with semantic HTML and Schema.org markup so a crawler can parse it without error?
How Evidence Becomes a Finding
Each piece of extracted evidence is evaluated using a specific rule. The result is a clear finding with an explanation.
Example: “We serve businesses in Austin, TX and surrounding areas…”
Service Area Rule
- ✓ Looks for clear location text
- ✓ Checks for consistency
- ✓ Validates structured data, if present
Service area information found and clearly stated.
This is an illustrative example, based on a real rule (“Service Area Is Clearly Defined”), not an actual scan result.
What You'll See In Your Report
Every report breaks down your results by C-I-T-E-D category, with individual findings, evidence, and prioritized recommendations.
Service Area Is Clearly Defined
AI Can't Confirm Where You're Located
Your Full Range Of Offerings May Not Be Described
This is a sample layout only, built from real rule names. Your actual report reflects your own website.
Understanding Finding Statuses
The required information is present, unambiguous, and correctly formatted for an automated reader to verify.
Something was found, but it's incomplete, or it doesn't fully agree with another source, such as your structured data.
An essential signal, such as a service definition or location, could not be found in your public content.
This check doesn't apply to a business shaped like yours, for example a multi-location rule when you operate from one address.
A technical or access issue kept us from evaluating this item, which is different from confirming it's missing.
Why Your Report May Contain Unexpected Findings
Your website may look good to humans
A visually impressive site can still have weak machine-readable evidence.
The scanner only evaluates accessible evidence
It can only analyze content that automated crawlers can access and read.
Missing evidence isn't a reflection of quality
A finding simply means the information isn't clearly available or verifiable to a machine reader, not that your business lacks it.
What Can Limit What We See
The scanner can only evaluate publicly accessible resources. Some websites block automated crawlers, use bot protection, or return errors that stop a page from loading at all. When this happens, the scanner may not be able to retrieve certain information, and missing evidence does not necessarily mean a problem with your business.
Bot Protection & CAPTCHA
Cloudflare, reCAPTCHA, Turnstile, and similar challenges can block an automated request entirely.
Blocked Or Rate-Limited Requests
A server can refuse a request (403) or rate-limit it (429) the same way it might treat any other bot.
DNS, SSL, Or Network Failures
A domain, certificate, or connectivity problem can stop a page from loading at all, independent of its content.
IP Or Region-Based Blocking
Some servers block requests from certain networks or countries, which we can't see or override from outside.
How This Is Different From a Typical SEO Audit
This isn't a replacement for traditional SEO, and it doesn't evaluate keyword rankings or backlinks. Instead, it focuses on whether the business evidence on your site is clearly stated, identifiable, structured, verifiable, and accessible, organized within the C-I-T-E-D framework.
Learn more about the thinking behind the framework on our About page, or read our deep dive on what makes a website easier for AI systems to understand.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an AI visibility audit?
It's a scan of your public website that checks whether the evidence AI systems look for, business identity, services, trust signals, and structured data, is clearly stated and machine-readable. It measures readiness, not actual citations.
How can I check the AI visibility of my website?
Run the free scan above. It crawls your publicly accessible pages, evaluates them against the C-I-T-E-D framework, and returns a category-by-category report in under a minute.
What is an AI readiness audit?
In this context, AI website readiness describes how clearly your site presents verifiable business information to automated crawlers and AI systems, not a company's broader AI adoption strategy.
Have a different question? See all FAQs
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