What is a GEO audit? Reachable isn't the same as citable
A GEO audit checks whether AI tools can reach, read, understand and trust your website well enough to quote it. Here is what it covers and how it differs from an SEO audit.
ModelSurge Team ·
A GEO audit (generative engine optimisation audit) checks whether AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can reach, read, understand and trust your website well enough to quote it.
Two different things are both called a “GEO audit”
If you’ve tried a few tools and got different answers, this is why:
- Some ask AI questions. They check whether your brand appears in AI answers. That is visibility tracking.
- Some inspect your website. They check whether AI can access, understand and cite your content. That is a site audit.
You need both. One tells you where you appear; the other helps you find what to improve.
Reachable isn’t the same as citable
Most people assume that if an AI crawler can load a page, the job is done. It isn’t. An AI engine can read your page and still choose not to quote it, for example because:
- it can’t tell clearly what your company is,
- the answer is buried under introductory paragraphs,
- the proof sits inside a chart image, or
- no named person stands behind the advice.
Being reachable is the first hurdle. Being worth quoting is the second, and it’s where many sites lose.
What a GEO audit checks
1. Technical foundation: can AI reach you?
- Whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended are blocked in your robots.txt. It’s common to have one blocked and the others allowed without anyone realising.
- Whether your pages need JavaScript to show anything. Most AI crawlers fetch raw HTML and don’t run scripts, so a page can look perfect to you and blank to them.
- Whether pages load fast enough to be read, plus broken links, redirect chains, HTTPS and your sitemap.
2. AI citability: will AI quote you?
- Can AI tell what your company is?
- Is there a direct answer near the top of the page?
- Are your key facts in text, or locked inside images and PDFs?
- Is there a named author with relevant credentials?
- Is there anything original worth quoting?
3. Page optimisation
Titles, meta descriptions, headings, alt text, internal links, and thin or duplicate content, page by page.
4. Content gaps
Questions with real demand where you have no page at all but competitors do.
How it differs from a traditional SEO audit
| Traditional SEO audit | GEO audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Crawler access | Googlebot and Bingbot | Also GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended |
| Page rendering | Assumes JavaScript runs | Tests what a non-JavaScript crawler sees |
| Structured data | For rich results | As the way AI identifies your company and products |
| Content | Keywords, headings, length | Whether there’s a clear answer AI can lift |
| Trust | Backlinks | Named authors, credentials, original data |
Will fixing everything guarantee AI cites you?
No. Readiness is the part you control. Whether AI then cites you also depends on competitors and authority. A good audit gives you clear findings, the affected pages, and a short list of what to fix first.
ModelSurge’s GEO Site Audit runs 500+ checks across these four groups, lists the affected pages for each finding, and feeds them into your action plan.