Skip to main content
Guides free ai search visibility tools

Free Tools to Check Your AI Search Visibility in 2026

Crawler-access checkers, llms.txt generators, and manual prompt tests — a practical roundup of free ways to check whether AI engines can find and cite your site.

· · Updated
Checklist diagram of AI visibility signals across access, structure, content, entity, and monitoring.
A useful AI visibility tool should measure the full stack, not just one isolated signal.

You don't need a budget to find out whether AI engines can see and cite your site. Here's a practical, free stack covering every part of the check.

1. Crawler-access checkers

A magnifying lens confirms that a crawler can reach a webpage.
Crawler-access tools reveal whether robots.txt or another technical layer blocks AI visibility at the first step.

Tools that check whether GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, and similar crawlers can actually reach your pages. GeoReady's AI Citation Checker runs this automatically and flags exactly what's blocking access, if anything.

2. llms.txt generators

Three curated webpages pass through a generator and become an llms.txt file.
An llms.txt generator can create a useful starting point, but the final list should still be reviewed and curated.

Rather than writing an llms.txt file by hand, GeoReady's free llms.txt generator builds one from your sitemap in a couple of minutes.

3. Manual prompt testing

A question and answer are inspected for the presence of a citation.
Manual prompt testing checks whether the brand appears for representative questions and whether the answer cites the domain.

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini directly about your product category and see if you're mentioned. It costs nothing but a few minutes, and it's the most direct signal you can get — just repeat it periodically, since answers shift over time.

4. Schema / structured data validators

Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator both check whether your JSON-LD markup is well-formed, free of charge, regardless of which AI engine eventually reads it.

Tip Run all four in this order: crawler access first, structured data second, llms.txt third, then manual prompt testing to confirm the whole chain actually results in a citation.

Want a broader comparison?

This roundup covers free options specifically. For a broader comparison including paid platforms and ongoing monitoring tools, see our best GEO tools guide .

Apply this guide

Run an AI SEO audit before you change pages.

Use the audit to find which signal is holding the site back: crawler access, schema, llms.txt, content clarity, AI discovery, or entity strength.

  • Best for pages that need a technical and content baseline.
  • Next metric: AI readiness score plus the weakest signal category.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need paid tools to check AI search visibility?

No. Crawler-access checks, llms.txt generation, manual prompt testing, and schema validation can all be done for free. Paid tools mainly add ongoing monitoring and historical tracking on top of the same underlying checks.

How often should I re-run these checks?

Monthly is a reasonable baseline, plus immediately after any site migration, CMS change, or robots.txt edit.

Get the monthly State of GEO report

AI search readiness benchmarks, adoption stats, and the actions that move the needle — delivered monthly. No spam.

By submitting, you agree to receive the State of GEO report and occasional GeoReady benchmark updates. You can unsubscribe anytime. See our Privacy Policy.