How I Run A Free SEO / GEO Audit In 9 Steps (2026)

A free SEO / GEO audit is one check-up that tells you two things at once: whether Google can crawl, index and rank your site, and whether AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews can find, cite and recommend you.

You can run the whole thing with free tools, and this page walks you through it in nine steps, in the order I'd do them myself.

If you'd rather have my team look at it with you, book a free strategy session and get a custom visibility plan for Google and AI.

SEO here means classic search engine optimisation, which is the technical, on-page and link work that gets you ranked.

GEO means generative engine optimisation, which is the work of getting your brand named and cited inside AI-generated answers.

I audit both together, because a page that can't rank in Google usually struggles to get picked up by AI tools as well.

What A Free SEO / GEO Audit Actually Checks

The audit splits into two halves that share one goal, which is getting your best pages in front of buyers.

The SEO half asks whether search engines can reach, understand and trust your pages.

The GEO half asks whether AI answer engines can reach your pages, quote them accurately and find other trusted sites that agree with them.

The term GEO comes from a research paper called "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", which Pranjal Aggarwal and his co-authors first posted to arXiv in November 2023.

Here is the checklist I use, with the SEO check on the left and its GEO partner on the right.

SEO check	GEO check
Googlebot can crawl your key pages, and robots.txt doesn't block them.	OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot can reach the same pages, and your CDN doesn't block them either.
Your money pages are indexed, and the URL Inspection tool shows no errors.	Those pages are eligible to show a snippet, because Google says that's the bar for AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Each page targets one clear search query in its title and H1.	Each page answers the buyer's question in its very first sentence.
Pages load fast and pass Core Web Vitals on mobile.	Important content sits in plain text on the page rather than inside images or scripts.
Structured data is valid in the Rich Results Test.	Structured data matches the visible text exactly, so nothing contradicts the page.
Internal links point at your most important pages.	The same pages are easy to find, so any crawler can follow a path to them.
You have relevant backlinks from real sites in your niche.	Your brand is mentioned on trusted third-party sources such as reviews, comparisons and expert articles.
Your About page and contact details are clear.	Your name, services and facts say the same thing everywhere, so AI tools describe you correctly.
Old pages are refreshed when facts change.	Pages carry current, specific facts and sources that an AI answer can safely repeat.
Search Console shows clicks, impressions and positions.	A fixed list of buyer prompts shows whether AI tools mention or cite you.

That table is the whole audit on one screen, and the nine steps below show you how to fill it in.

The Free Tools You Need For A Free SEO / GEO Audit

Every tool in this list has an official page you can open today, and I've only described what those pages say.

Tool	Who makes it	What it checks in your audit
Google Search Console	Google	Queries, clicks, impressions, position, indexing, sitemaps, URL Inspection and Core Web Vitals reports.
PageSpeed Insights	Google	You paste a URL and click Analyze, and it runs Lighthouse audits on that page.
Lighthouse	Google Chrome	It's an open-source tool with audits for performance, accessibility, SEO and more.
Rich Results Test	Google	It tests a URL or a code snippet to see whether the page supports rich results.
Schema Markup Validator	Schema.org	It is the validator linked from Schema.org's own website, and it tests your schema markup.
Bing Webmaster Tools	Microsoft	Its AI Performance report shows how often your pages are cited in Copilot and AI summaries in Bing.
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google	OpenAI, Perplexity, Google	You ask them your buyer prompts and record whether you're named or cited.

Google describes Search Console as "a free service offered by Google", so that's the one tool every site owner should already have.

Microsoft announced the AI Performance report in public preview on 10 February 2026.

If you'd rather not run these tools alone, grab a free strategy session and a strategist will answer your audit questions live.

🔥 Want my AI SEO workflows to run these checks for you? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom, I share the AI SEO trainings and the installable Agent OS I use to run audits on my own sites. You'll learn alongside 3,400+ members, with four coaching calls a week. → Get access here

How To Run A Free SEO / GEO Audit In 9 Steps

This is the exact order I'd run it in, starting with the checks that can block everything else.

Step 1: Write down your money pages and your buyer prompts

Open a spreadsheet and list the ten to twenty pages that actually bring you leads or sales.

Next to them, write twenty to fifty questions a real buyer would type into ChatGPT or Google before choosing a business like yours.

This list is the backbone of the whole audit, because every later check is measured against these pages and questions.

Step 2: Check crawl access for Google and the AI crawlers

Open yoursite.com/robots.txt in your browser and read it line by line.

Google explains that a robots.txt file tells crawlers which URLs they can access, so one wrong line can hide your whole site.

Then look for the AI crawlers by name.

OpenAI's crawler page recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot if you want to appear in ChatGPT search results, and it treats GPTBot, which is the training crawler, as a separate setting.

OpenAI also says it can take about 24 hours for a robots.txt change to reach its search systems.

Perplexity's crawler page recommends allowing PerplexityBot if you want to appear in its search results.

For Google's AI features, Google's guide says robots.txt rules for Googlebot are the access control.

Ask your host or developer whether a firewall or CDN blocks these bots, because Google lists CDN and hosting rules alongside robots.txt.

Step 3: Check indexing in Search Console

Open the indexing reports in Google Search Console and look for any money page that isn't indexed.

Paste each money page into the URL Inspection tool, which Google says gives you crawl, index and serving information straight from the Google index.

Google's AI features guide says a page only needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet to be eligible for AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Step 4: Test speed and page experience

Run your top five money pages through PageSpeed Insights on mobile.

Google's Core Web Vitals page sets the good thresholds as Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1.

Write down the page, the three numbers and the top fix PageSpeed Insights suggests.

Google lists a strong page experience among the SEO practices that still apply to its AI features, so this check counts twice.

Step 5: Read each money page like an AI would

Open each money page and read only the first sentence under the main heading.

If that sentence doesn't answer the buyer's question directly, rewrite it so it does.

My own rule is to keep that first answer under fifty words, because short, direct answers are easy to quote.

Check that prices, opening hours, services and key facts sit in plain text, because Google says to keep important content available as text.

Add a short FAQ section that uses the exact questions from your prompt list.

Step 6: Validate structured data

Structured data is a small block of code that labels a page for machines, such as an Article, a Product or an FAQ.

Run each money page through the Rich Results Test to see whether it supports rich results.

Run the same page through the Schema Markup Validator as a second check on your schema markup.

Then compare the markup with the visible page, because Google says structured data should match the visible text.

Don't buy special "AI schema", because Google says there's no special schema.org markup you need for AI Overviews or AI Mode.

📞 Halfway through and not sure what matters most? Book a free strategy session with Goldie Agency, and a strategist will go through your visibility across Google, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini with you. You'll also get a competitor gap analysis that shows why rivals appear more often. → Claim your free session

Step 7: Check links and third-party mentions

Open the Links report in Search Console and note which sites link to you and which pages they point at.

Then search your brand name in Google and note every review site, directory, comparison and article that mentions you.

My strategy session page says AI platforms look for consistent signals across the wider web, such as trusted publications, expert articles, independent reviews, comparisons and credible third-party references.

So this step covers backlinks for SEO and brand mentions for GEO in one sweep.

Step 8: Run your buyer prompts in the AI tools

Ask each prompt from Step 1 in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google, including AI Overviews and AI Mode where they show.

For each answer, log four things: whether you're mentioned, whether your site is cited as a source, which competitors appear and whether the facts about you are correct.

Run each prompt more than once, because AI answers can change from one chat to the next.

If you've verified your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, open the AI Performance report as well.

Microsoft's announcement says it shows Total Citations, Average Cited Pages, sample grounding queries, page-level citation activity and trends over time.

Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic is counted in the "Web" search type of the Search Console Performance report, so you won't find a separate AI tab there.

Step 9: Score it and set the fix order

Give each row of the checklist a simple traffic-light score of green, amber or red.

Then fix things in this order, because each layer depends on the one before it.

Fix order	What you fix	Why it comes here
1	Crawl and robots.txt blocks for Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot	Nothing else matters if crawlers can't reach the page.
2	Indexing errors on money pages	A page that isn't indexed can't rank or appear in Google's AI features.
3	First-sentence answers and FAQ sections on money pages	This is the fastest content change and it helps both halves.
4	Wrong or inconsistent facts about your business	AI tools repeat what they read, so bad facts spread.
5	Structured data that doesn't match the page	Mismatched markup sends mixed signals.
6	Speed and Core Web Vitals on mobile	Page experience helps rankings and Google lists it for AI features too.
7	Internal links to your money pages	Better paths help every crawler find what matters.
8	Backlinks and trusted third-party mentions	This takes the longest, so start it once the basics are fixed.
9	Re-run the prompts and Search Console checks	This shows you what changed since your baseline.

🚀 Ready to put How I Run A Free SEO / GEO Audit In 9 Steps 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 SEO / GEO Audit Can't Tell You

A free audit shows you where you stand today, and it doesn't show you why a model chose one brand over another.

None of the companies behind ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Claude publishes a formula for which brands get recommended.

Google's own guide says meeting its requirements doesn't guarantee crawling, indexing or serving.

So nobody can guarantee a ranking or a mention in an AI answer, and that includes me.

What an audit can do is remove the blockers you control and give you a dated baseline to measure against.

The free strategy session works the same way, because it gives you a visibility plan and a roadmap rather than a promise.

If you want a full paid audit later, Goldie Agency's Complete Site Audit page describes 30+ pages covering a site audit, content audit, keyword audit, backlink audit, keyword research, a content calendar, a topical map and a competitor gap analysis.

Paid work is scoped after a conversation, so I won't quote a price here.

🔥 Rather learn to run audits like this every week? The AI Profit Boardroom has my AI SEO trainings, the Agent OS and the workflows I run on my own sites. There are 3,400+ members inside and four coaching calls a week where you can ask about your own audit. → Join the AI Profit Boardroom

How I Use AI Agents To Repeat The Audit

My Agent OS is a dashboard that runs a crew of AI agents, such as Hermes and Claude, under one shared memory.

One agent can re-ask the buyer prompts on a schedule and save each dated answer and cited source.

Another agent can read robots.txt and flag any change that blocks a crawler you care about.

I still review every fix before it goes live, because an agent can be confidently wrong.

If you want the answer-engine side in more depth, my King of AEO breakdown covers the setup I run daily.

My AI SEO optimization agency guide explains the six jobs an agency should run if you'd rather hire it out.

From this same batch, my free GEO audit guide goes deeper on the GEO half, and my AEO audit walkthrough covers answer-engine checks prompt by prompt.

My Verdict On The Free SEO / GEO Audit

Run the SEO half and the GEO half together, because they share the same blockers and the same pages.

Start with crawl access and indexing, then fix your first sentences, then your facts, and only then chase links and mentions.

Keep your prompt list and your Search Console numbers, because next month's audit is only useful if you can compare it with this one.

If you'd like a strategist to go through your audit with you, book a free strategy session and leave with a clear AI visibility roadmap and a plan for traffic, mentions and leads.

Also On Our Network

FAQ: Free SEO / GEO Audit

What is a free SEO / GEO audit?

It is one check-up that looks at whether Google can crawl, index and rank your site, and whether AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews can find and cite you.

You can run it with free tools such as Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, the Rich Results Test and the AI tools themselves.

What is the difference between an SEO audit and a GEO audit?

An SEO audit checks crawling, indexing, speed, on-page content and links for search engines.

A GEO audit checks whether AI answer engines can reach your pages, quote them accurately and find trusted third-party sources that mention you.

Do I need special schema or an AI text file to pass a GEO audit?

Google says there are no additional requirements for AI Overviews or AI Mode, no special schema.org markup and no new AI text files needed.

Normal SEO fundamentals apply, and your structured data should match the visible text on the page.

Which robots.txt settings matter for a free SEO / GEO audit?

Googlebot controls access for Google Search and its AI features, OAI-SearchBot controls ChatGPT search, and PerplexityBot controls Perplexity search results.

OpenAI treats GPTBot, its training crawler, as a separate setting from OAI-SearchBot.

Can a free audit guarantee I'll appear in AI answers?

No, because nobody can guarantee a ranking or what a model says.

A free audit removes the blockers you control and gives you a baseline, and the free strategy session can help you plan the next steps.

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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

Run the nine steps this week, keep your baseline, and you'll know exactly where you stand after your free SEO / GEO audit.