Free GEO Audit: What It Checks, Where GEO Comes From, And How The Models Behind The Engines Score

A free GEO audit is a check of whether generative AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot can read your site, trust your content and cite it when they write an answer.

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation, and the term comes from a 2023 research paper that tested what makes content more visible inside AI-written answers.

The problem it solves is that a page can rank well in Google and still never be used as a source when an AI answers the same question.

If you'd like my team to look at your AI visibility with you, you can book a free strategy session and get a competitor gap analysis.

In this post I'll explain where GEO comes from, what a free GEO audit checks, how to run one with free tools and what it can't tell you.

Near the end, I'll show how the models behind today's generative engines score on this leaderboard, and why that's a different question from GEO.

What is a free GEO audit?

A free GEO audit runs at three levels, which are your site, your most important pages and your brand across the wider web.

The site level asks whether AI engines can access and index your pages.

The page level asks whether your content contains things worth citing, such as clear answers, sourced numbers, real quotes and links to credible sources.

The brand level asks whether outside websites describe you the same way you describe yourself.

An SEO audit asks whether Google can rank a page, while a GEO audit asks whether an AI will choose that page as a source.

Where does the term GEO come from?

The term was introduced in the paper "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization".

Its authors are Pranjal Aggarwal, Vishvak Murahari, Tanmay Rajpurohit, Ashwin Kalyan, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande.

It was submitted to arXiv on 16 November 2023, and the listing notes it was accepted to KDD 2024.

That's the best public evidence for page-level GEO, but it's evidence of direction rather than a guarantee.

What does a free GEO audit check?

These are the ten checks I'd run, scored 0 for missing, 1 for partly there and 2 for solid.

OpenAI's documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers.

Perplexity's documentation recommends allowing PerplexityBot if you want to appear in its search results.

Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Bing's guidance says examples, data and cited sources help build trust when content is reused in AI-generated answers, and that accurate, up-to-date content matters for citation.

📞 Want these checks run against your competitors? Book a free strategy session with Goldie Agency and leave with a custom visibility plan, a clear AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis.

How to run a free GEO audit with free tools

Start with robots.txt, which you can open in any browser at yourdomain.com/robots.txt.

Then confirm your five most important pages are indexed in Google Search Console.

Next, set up Bing Webmaster Tools and open its AI Performance report, which Microsoft calls an early step toward GEO tooling.

It shows total citations, average cited pages, grounding queries and which of your pages get cited across Microsoft Copilot, Bing's AI summaries and select partners.

Then ask five real buyer prompts in Perplexity, ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, and note which sources each answer cites.

Run this prompt on your five most important pages to speed up checks 4 to 8.

Read the page text below and act as a strict editor.
Quote the first sentence of each section and say whether it directly answers a question.
List every number and whether a source is named for it.
List every quotation and whether the speaker or source is named.
List every outbound citation and what kind of source it points to.
List any phrase repeated in a way a normal writer wouldn't repeat it.
Do not rewrite the page and do not invent sources.

Finally, list twenty outside pages that mention your brand and compare them with your own facts.

Goldie Agency's strategy session page says AI platforms don't recommend brands simply because those brands publish more on their own websites.

It says trusted publications, expert articles, independent reviews, comparisons and credible third-party references help create a clear consensus around who you are.

How is GEO different from SEO and AEO?

The three overlap heavily, and Google says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for its AI features.

So a free GEO audit doesn't replace an SEO audit, and it works best as an extra layer on top of one.

Common free GEO audit mistakes

The first mistake is checking only your own website and ignoring what outside sites say about you.

The second mistake is adding statistics or quotes with no source, which undoes the trust the check is meant to build.

The third mistake is treating one prompt test as proof, because AI answers change from one chat to the next.

The fourth mistake is chasing a special GEO file, when Google says no new machine-readable files or special schema are needed for its AI features.

The fifth mistake is auditing once and never re-checking, because engines and sources keep moving.

How often should you run a free GEO audit?

I'd run the full ten checks once a quarter and the crawl and citation checks once a month.

Run an extra audit after a site migration, a redesign or a rebrand, because those are the moments crawler rules and facts tend to break.

Keep every scorecard, because the change between audits tells you more than any single score.

What the free strategy session is, and isn't

The free strategy session with Goldie Agency works like a free GEO audit conversation, and the page says it's 100% free with no obligation.

You talk to an experienced strategist and leave with a custom visibility plan, a clear AI visibility roadmap, a competitor gap analysis and a plan for traffic, mentions and leads.

It isn't a written report or an automated audit tool, so run your own checks first and bring them along.

What to fix first after a free GEO audit

Fix crawl access and indexing first, because the engines' makers spell those out themselves.

Fix sourced statistics and citations to credible sources next, because those had the strongest support in the GEO paper.

Then work on brand consensus, because that's where competitors usually pull ahead.

Date your key pages and review their facts every quarter, so engines aren't repeating old prices or services.

What a free GEO audit can't tell you

A free GEO audit shows you what to improve, but it can't tell you exactly how an engine will weigh each change.

Google says there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode, so be wary of anyone selling a secret GEO file.

Nobody can guarantee what a generative engine will cite, and that includes me and my agency.

📞 Scored low on brand consensus? Grab a free strategy session and get a strategy built around your brand, covering the bylines, reviews, comparisons and research placements that fit your market.

Which models sit behind the generative engines, and how do they score on GoldieBench?

Now for the GoldieBench part, and I need to be clear about what it measures.

GoldieBench scores models on one-shot builds such as landing pages, apps, games and visuals, on a 0 to 10 scale.

It doesn't measure how a model chooses or cites sources, so it can't tell you which engine is easiest to appear in.

A free GEO audit doesn't ship its own model, and neither do the free tools above.

The engines you're auditing are built by model makers, and these are how those makers' models score on their live pages today.

Claude Opus 5 is the highest of these at 8.27, with GPT-5.6 Sol close behind at 8.16.

Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot have no model on GoldieBench, so I can't give you a score for either.

The board also can't tell you which exact model a consumer app runs at any moment, because the makers change that themselves.

Why model scores and GEO are different questions

The GEO paper's main experiments used a GPT-3.5-turbo engine, which isn't on this board.

That's a useful reminder that the engines behind AI search keep changing, so a GEO finding from 2023 needs re-testing on today's tools.

A stronger model doesn't automatically cite your site more, because citation depends on retrieval, the sources available and what those sources say.

Where model quality does matter is the audit work itself, such as reading your pages and comparing outside mentions with your facts.

For that job I'd pick a model that follows detailed instructions exactly, and I'd still check every flag it raises against the page.

I'd also keep the same model for every monthly audit, so changes in the scorecard come from your site and not from the model reading it.

Related reading on GoldieBench

My King of AEO post covers the answer engine side from the model angle.

My AI SEO optimization agency post explains the work that usually follows an audit.

In the same batch, I wrote about the free AEO report for measuring AI answers and the free SEO and GEO audit that combines both checklists.

If you'd like expert eyes on your scorecard, book a free strategy session and leave with a plan for traffic, mentions and leads.

Also On Our Network

• Agent Operatorsthe 90-minute operator walkthrough for a free GEO audit
• AI Income Deskfour ways a business can use a free GEO audit
• AI Tool Verdictten GEO audit checks rated by their evidence
• agentos.guidea monthly free GEO audit routine for your Agent OS
• aiprofitboardroom.comhow I use Reddit in my AI SEO content

Run the ten checks, fix them in order of evidence and re-test every month, because that's how a free GEO audit turns into real AI visibility work.