What is an AI SEO audit?

An AI SEO audit evaluates how effectively search engines and artificial intelligence platforms (such as ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google Gemini, and Claude) can crawl, render, interpret, and cite your website alongside traditional Google search crawlers.

Is AI Scan My Site free?

Yes, AI Scan My Site offers 5 free website audits every day with zero credit card required. You can also claim free unlimited scans using promo code FREEPRO.

What does an AI SEO audit check?

It inspects AI bot permissions in robots.txt (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot), checks for llms.txt context manifests, verifies JSON-LD schema entity graphs, audits vision AI alt text, and evaluates PageSpeed Core Web Vitals.

How is AI Scan My Site different from PageSpeed Insights?

Google PageSpeed Insights focuses on frontend performance metrics (LCP, CLS, INP). AI Scan My Site integrates official PageSpeed performance data with dedicated AI bot crawlability, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing content, direct answers, and FAQ schemas for conversational voice assistants and AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) ensures your brand entities, structured schemas, vector context, and authoritative citations are recognized across LLM search indexes and AI overviews.

Can AI Scan My Site check AI crawler accessibility?

Yes. Our scanner checks whether AI user-agents (including GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, and Google-Extended) are allowed or blocked in your robots.txt configuration.

llms.txt is an emerging web standard that provides clean markdown context summaries of your website's key pages, purpose, and APIs specifically formatted for Large Language Model indexing.

What percentage of websites allow GPTBot in 2026?

In our benchmark audit of 54 top global brands, 70.4% of websites allow OpenAI's GPTBot in robots.txt, while 29.6% block it. However, 100% of major legacy news media publishers actively block GPTBot.

What percentage of websites adopt llms.txt manifests?

As of late 2026, 40.7% of leading tech and SaaS companies have implemented an llms.txt manifest file at their root domain, whereas adoption remains under 5% in legacy publishing and retail.

State of AI SEO 2026: Benchmark Study of 50+ Top Global Brands

1. Methodology & Dataset

To measure the real-world adoption of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) protocols, our research automated live checks across 54 representative domains categorized into three primary industry verticals:

SaaS & Tech (30 domains): Industry leaders including Stripe, Vercel, GitHub, Notion, Figma, Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, Atlassian, Zoom, Shopify, Zapier, Linear, and Mailchimp.
E-Commerce Retailers (13 domains): Enterprise retail operations including Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target, Etsy, BestBuy, HomeDepot, Nike, Adidas, Zara, and ASOS.
Media & News Publishers (11 domains): High-traffic publishing houses including The New York Times, BBC, CNN, TechCrunch, The Verge, Wired, Forbes, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Medium, and Substack.

2. The Great Divide: Tech vs. Media

Our audit discovered a stark divergence in AI crawler governance depending on business model:

Industry Vertical	GPTBot Allowed %	llms.txt Present %	Primary Strategic Driver
SaaS & Developer Tools	86.7%	63.3%	Maximize product discovery & AI answer citations
E-Commerce Retail	84.6%	15.4%	Allow product indexing; low awareness of llms.txt
News & Media Publishers	0.0%	0.0%	Copyright protection & licensing dispute defenses

While SaaS platforms view ChatGPT and Perplexity as primary channels for acquisition, legacy news publishers treat AI crawlers as unauthorized content scrapers, creating a complete blackout of media indexing.

3. Actionable Checklist for Site Owners

If your domain is not a media licensing business, blocking AI crawlers harms your organic referral discovery. Follow these steps:

Check your robots.txt file using our Free AI SEO Checker.
Ensure User-agent: GPTBot and User-agent: PerplexityBot are set to Allow: /.
Generate an llms.txt file with our free llms.txt Generator.

Audit Your Domain Against 2026 AI Benchmarks

Run a free 10-second scan to test your robots.txt rules, llms.txt availability, JSON-LD schema, and PageSpeed.

⚡ Test Your Site Instantly on AIScanMySite.com

📊 Key Research Findings (Executive Summary)

1. Methodology & Dataset

2. The Great Divide: Tech vs. Media

3. Actionable Checklist for Site Owners

Audit Your Domain Against 2026 AI Benchmarks