LLM optimization · free scan · no email

ChatGPT SEO and LLM optimization

ChatGPT SEO is not a new set of ranking tricks. It is whether ChatGPT's crawlers can read your page and find something worth quoting. OpenAI documents the mechanism: "OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT's search features." If your robots.txt turns that bot away, no content fix will help. We audit access, readability and citability in one 164-check scan.

Whether ChatGPT cites your site comes down to a chain of four conditions, all true at the same time. Standard SEO tools cover one of them, partially. We cover all four.

Free Visibility Scan: whole site, up to 150 pages, no email. Full Report is a one-time $10.

What it means

The chain of four things that must all be true.

Traditional SEO is about ranking in a list of blue links. LLM optimization, sometimes called GEO or AEO, is about being cited in a generated answer. The mechanisms overlap but are not identical. For a large language model to cite your page:

  • Access. The retrieval crawler for that engine (OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT, Claude-SearchBot for Claude, Perplexity-User for Perplexity) must be allowed in your robots.txt and able to fetch your page.
  • Readability. Your content must be present in raw HTML, not locked behind JavaScript execution. AI crawlers do not run scripts.
  • Citability. Your page must contain something extractable: a specific claim, a stat, a definition, a how-to step. Generic descriptions and filler text are not quoted.
  • Clarity. Your headings, answer blocks and schema markup must make the relevant passage identifiable at a glance. If a model has to infer what your page is about, it usually finds something clearer.

Guide depth: how to get cited by ChatGPT and why you're not cited by ChatGPT.

What we check

The checks behind ChatGPT SEO.

  • Retrieval bot access: whether OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot or PerplexityBot is blocked in your robots.txt. A block on a retrieval bot is a scored failure: the engine cannot fetch your page when a user asks a question.
  • Full 15-bot posture map: so you can see whether you are selectively blocking retrieval bots (invisible to live queries) while still allowing training bots, or vice versa.
  • JavaScript-free content: whether your page has meaningful text before scripts run. A blank shell is a blank page to an AI crawler.
  • Answer block: whether your page opens with a direct, extractable answer instead of burying it five paragraphs down.
  • Citable facts: specific quotable claims in your body copy: statistics, named figures, defined terms, concrete steps.
  • Passage structure: heading distribution across the page; long unbroken text blocks are harder to locate and extract.
  • Schema completeness: FAQPage, Article, HowTo and Organization markup that helps engines classify your content correctly.
  • llms.txt: the emerging convention for pointing non-Google AI crawlers at your best pages. Guide: llms.txt explained.

The free scan covers your whole site, up to 150 pages, and names every failing check worst first. The $10 Full Report unseals page-by-page detail plus the PDF, action plan and AI-ready fix file. The umbrella view lives at the AI search optimization hub.

Questions

Straight answers.

Can AuditLamp tell me whether I appear in ChatGPT's answers right now?

No, and any tool that claims to do this reliably is overstating its capability. Live AI answers are generated at query time from a combination of retrieval, cached knowledge and model judgment. We audit the preconditions for citability, crawler access, content structure, schema, which are the factors you can actually control. Whether any given answer includes you depends on factors outside a static audit.

Is "LLM optimization" different from standard SEO?

Partly. The access and indexing foundations overlap (robots.txt, crawlability, structured data). The content layer diverges: traditional SEO prioritizes keyword relevance and authority; LLM optimization additionally rewards specific extractable claims, clear passage structure and entity clarity. We score both layers in one scan.

My page ranks well on Google. Why wouldn't it be cited by ChatGPT?

Several reasons are common: a retrieval bot block you did not intend, a JavaScript-rendered page the AI crawler sees as blank, or content that ranks for keywords but does not contain a specific quotable claim. Our report diagnoses which of these applies. Read more: why you're not cited by ChatGPT.

What is llms.txt and do I need it?

llms.txt is an emerging convention, not yet a formal standard, that lets you point non-Google AI crawlers to your most important pages. It is optional and not a ranking signal for Google. We report its status accurately and do not overstate its impact. If you want one, our free llms.txt generator builds it.

See what ChatGPT's crawlers see.

Free scan of your whole site, up to 150 pages. Grounded in official crawler documentation from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Perplexity, and we link to all of it.

164 graded checks · every check maps to a documented mechanism · no email