A free AEO audit is a no-cost check of whether AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews mention your brand, and you can get one in two ways.
The first way is to book a free SEO strategy session with my team, which works like a free AEO audit conversation because you go through your AI visibility with a strategist and leave with a plan.
The second way is to run it yourself in about 30 minutes with free tools, and that's what most of this page walks you through.
AEO stands for answer engine optimisation, which is the work of getting your brand named and cited in AI-written answers.
I'll show you the timed DIY method, the free tools I checked today and exactly what a free audit can and can't tell you.
The Two Ways To Get A Free AEO Audit
Here's the quick comparison, so you can pick a route before you read any further.
| Route | What you get | What it costs | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| My free strategy session | A custom visibility plan, a clear AI visibility roadmap, a competitor gap analysis and your questions answered by an experienced strategist | Nothing, and the page says there's no obligation | One call |
| The DIY method on this page | Your own dated prompt log, a simple score and three fixes | Nothing but your time | About 30 minutes |
The strategy session is a conversation and a plan, so don't expect an automated tool or a written report from it.
The DIY method gives you the raw evidence, and it pairs well with the session because you can bring your log to the call.
What You Need For The Free DIY Version
You don't need a paid tool, an agency or a developer for the first pass.
- You need a spreadsheet with one row per prompt and one column per AI tool.
- You need access to the AI tools your buyers use, and Claude's own pricing page lists a free plan if you don't have it yet.
- You need the address of your robots.txt file, which is your domain followed by /robots.txt.
- You need the names of your three biggest competitors.
- You need a timer, because the 30-minute limit keeps the first pass focused.
🔥 Want my exact Free AEO Audit setup, step by step? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get step-by-step video trainings, my installable Agent OS and four coaching calls a week with 3,400+ members building real automations. → Join the AI Profit Boardroom
The 30-Minute Free AEO Audit, Block By Block
I run the crawler check first, because if an AI crawler is blocked the rest of the results won't make sense.
Minutes 0 to 5: Check that AI crawlers can reach you
Open your robots.txt file in a browser and look for rules that name these crawlers.
| Crawler | Owner | What the official docs say |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | It surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features, and OpenAI recommends allowing it |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | It surfaces and links websites in Perplexity's search results, and Perplexity recommends allowing it |
| Googlebot | Google says crawling must be allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting setup |
I checked OpenAI's crawler page, Perplexity's crawler page and Google's guide to AI features on 17 October 2026.
If any of those is disallowed on your main pages, write it down as fix number one.
GPTBot is a separate OpenAI crawler for model training, so a rule that blocks GPTBot doesn't block ChatGPT search.
Minutes 5 to 10: Write ten buyer prompts
Write ten questions a buyer would type before choosing a business like yours.
I use two of each of these five types so the short list still covers the whole journey.
| Prompt type | Example to adapt |
|---|---|
| Best-of | Who is the best [service] for [type of customer]? |
| Comparison | Is [your brand] better than [competitor] for [job]? |
| Problem | How do I solve [problem you fix]? |
| Brand | What do people say about [your brand]? |
| Alternatives | What are good alternatives to [competitor]? |
Use the wording your customers use on the phone, not the wording on your homepage.
Minutes 10 to 22: Run the prompts in three tools
Pick the three AI tools your buyers use most, which for many businesses means ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google.
Paste each prompt into a fresh chat, so earlier questions don't steer the answer.
That's thirty answers in twelve minutes, so move quickly and paste each answer into your sheet without reading it closely yet.
On Google, note whether an AI Overview appeared at all, because Google says AI Overviews often don't trigger.
Minutes 22 to 26: Log mentions, sources and facts
Now read the answers and fill in four columns for each one.
- Mark whether your brand was named, and where it sat in the answer.
- List the competitors that were named instead of you or alongside you.
- Copy the websites the answer cited as sources.
- Mark any fact about you that was wrong, such as an old price, an old service or the wrong location.
The sources column is the most useful one, because it shows which websites the AI trusts in your market.
Minutes 26 to 30: Score it and pick three fixes
Count how many of your thirty answers named you, and write that number at the top of the sheet with today's date.
Then pick three fixes from what you found, using this order.
- Fix any crawler block first, because nothing else works until the AI can read your pages.
- Fix any wrong fact next, because it's cheap and it hurts every answer it appears in.
- Pick the most-cited third-party source where you're missing, and make earning a place on it your first coverage goal.
That's a complete free AEO audit, and you now have a dated baseline you can re-run next month.
📞 Want an expert to read your 30-minute log with you? Book a free SEO strategy session and my team will go through your competitor gap analysis, explain why competing brands appear more often and give you a clear AI visibility roadmap. → Claim your free strategy session
Free Tools That Add Depth To Your AEO Audit
These tools are free on their own pages as of 17 October 2026, and I've described each one only by what its page says.
| Tool | What its own page says it does | What it adds to your audit |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot AI Search Grader | A free one-time check of what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini say about your brand based on their training data, scored out of 100 across five dimensions, with no account required | A quick brand-perception snapshot to compare with your own log |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Free reports, tools and resources, including an AI Performance report in public preview since 10 February 2026 | Citation counts for your pages in Microsoft Copilot and AI-generated summaries in Bing |
| Google Search Console | A free service from Google for monitoring your site's presence in Google Search | AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic inside the "Web" search type, plus URL Inspection |
| Go Fish Digital's AI Visibility Audit | A free, expert-led AI visibility audit with a live 30-minute strategy session | A second expert view from another agency |
HubSpot's page asks you to complete a form to see the full written results, so expect to share your details.
The HubSpot grader says it works from the models' training data, so it may differ from what those tools say when they search the live web.
Microsoft's AI Performance announcement lists total citations, average cited pages, grounding queries and page-level citation activity among the metrics.
I haven't used Go Fish Digital's audit myself, so I'm only describing what its page says.
For schema, you can paste a URL into Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator to check that your markup is valid.
🚀 Ready to put Free AEO Audit to work in your business? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get step-by-step video trainings, my installable Agent OS and four coaching calls a week with 3,400+ members building real automations. → Join the AI Profit Boardroom
What A Free AEO Audit Can Tell You
A free audit is genuinely useful, and it's where I'd start every time.
- It can tell you whether AI tools name you for the questions closest to a sale.
- It can tell you which competitors get named instead of you.
- It can tell you which websites the AI cites, which is your map for earning coverage.
- It can tell you whether a crawler block is hiding your site.
- It can tell you whether the AI states wrong facts about your business.
What A Free AEO Audit Can't Tell You
A free audit also has hard limits, and you should know them before you act on it.
- It can't tell you what every buyer sees, because AI answers change from one chat to the next.
- It can't tell you exactly why a model chose one source over another, because none of the big AI companies publishes that formula.
- It can't cover every phrasing of every question, because ten prompts are a sample and not the whole market.
- It can't guarantee anything about future answers, because nobody can guarantee what a model says.
Google also says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special schema.org markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, so be wary of a free audit that ends by selling you one.
How To Turn A Free AEO Audit Into A Full One
The 30-minute version is a first pass, and the full version goes wider.
| Free version | Full version |
|---|---|
| Ten prompts | 20 to 50 prompts across more question types |
| Three AI tools | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode |
| One run per prompt | At least two runs per prompt to allow for changing answers |
| A quick crawler look | A crawler, CDN, indexing and snippet check on every key page |
| A count of mentions | A scorecard covering facts, coverage, answer-first pages and schema |
My sibling guide to the full AEO audit walks through all ten steps with the scorecard.
If you need to present your findings to someone else, my guide to the free AEO report shows how to write them up.
If you're also checking generative engine optimisation, my free GEO audit post covers the GEO-specific checks.
📞 Want to skip straight to the full picture? Grab a free SEO strategy session with my team and you'll leave with a custom visibility plan and a strategy built around the bylines, reviews, comparisons and research that fit your market. → Book your free session
The Fixes I'd Make After A Free AEO Audit
These are the fixes I'd make on my own sites, in order, after a first pass.
My first rule is to answer the main question in the first sentence of every key page and keep that sentence under fifty words.
My second rule is to add a short FAQ section to each key page, with FAQPage schema that matches the visible text.
My third rule is to keep the facts about my brand identical on my site, my profiles and my listings.
My fourth rule is to earn coverage on the sources the AI already cites, because my strategy session page says AI platforms look for consistent signals across the wider web rather than brands that simply publish more on their own sites.
If you want to learn the craft properly, my AI SEO training guide lists what I'd study first, and my King of AEO post shows how I run answer engine optimisation every day.
🔥 Want my AI agents to run this free audit for you every week? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom, I share the installable Agent OS, my AI SEO workflows and step-by-step trainings. You'll learn with 3,400+ members and get four coaching calls a week. → Get access here
My Verdict On The Free AEO Audit
Run the 30-minute version today, because it costs nothing and it gives you a dated baseline.
Add the free tools when you want more depth, and remember that the HubSpot grader works from training data while your own prompts show live answers.
If the gaps look big, bring your log to a free strategy session and get an expert view before you spend anything.
When you're ready, book a free SEO strategy session and leave with a plan for traffic, mentions and leads.
Also On Our Network
- 🌐 Four ways a business can get a free AEO audit without paying
- 🌐 Six free AEO audit options rated side by side
- 🌐 A free weekly AEO audit that runs inside your Agent OS
- 🌐 Whether a free AEO audit is worth it, plus free models to analyse it with
FAQ: Free AEO Audit
How do I get a free AEO audit?
You can book a free SEO strategy session with my team, which works like a free AEO audit conversation, or run the 30-minute DIY method on this page.
Free tools like HubSpot's AI Search Grader, Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console add more depth at no cost.
Is the free strategy session a written AEO report?
No, it's a free AI brand visibility session with an experienced strategist.
The page says you leave with a custom visibility plan, a clear AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis.
Is there a free AEO audit tool?
HubSpot's AI Search Grader is a free one-time check of what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini say about your brand based on their training data.
Bing Webmaster Tools also has a free AI Performance report that shows how often your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.
How long does a free AEO audit take?
The DIY version on this page takes about 30 minutes for ten prompts in three AI tools.
A full audit with 20 to 50 prompts and every check takes a morning or more.
Can a free AEO audit guarantee I'll appear in ChatGPT?
No, because nobody can guarantee what a model says.
A free audit shows you what the AI says today and what to fix, and re-running it monthly shows whether your fixes helped.
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About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an SEO entrepreneur, author and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
- I started Goldie Agency on my own, and it is now a 7-figure SEO and link-building agency with 70+ people.
- I've grown my YouTube channel to 400,000+ subscribers.
- I wrote "Link Building Mastery".
- My Udemy courses have taught 29,000+ students.
→ Get my best AI training inside the AI Profit Boardroom
Set a 30-minute timer, run your ten prompts and save the dated log, and you'll have a free AEO audit you can build on.
