Skip to content
SeenLens

How to check the AI visibility of a website

You can check AI visibility with five methods. They are a prompt panel, the Search Console generative AI report, the Bing AI Performance report, server logs and a readiness scan. No single method gives the full picture. Citations change often: Ahrefs found that 50 to 60 percent disappeared by the next answer.

By SeenLens · Last updated

Run the free 43-check scan on your page

Why does one check not tell you your AI visibility?

AI visibility means how often AI search products mention, cite or send visitors to your site. The glossary entry on AI visibility gives the full definition. The answers vary from run to run.

Ahrefs published a study on 2026-10-29. It tracked about 37,500 citations daily for 20 days across Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. In every tool, 50 to 60 percent of citations disappeared by the next answer that had citations. Many answers had no citations at all: 64 percent of Gemini answers and 53 percent of Copilot answers. Ahrefs advises counting how many of the last seven days a page was cited, and watching brand mentions.

So repeat every check, log the results in a sheet and look at the trend.

Which method measures what?

Five ways to check AI visibility
MethodCostWhat it measuresWhat it misses
Prompt panelFree, plus your timeWhether your brand or URL appears in answers to your chosen promptsOther prompts, other users, and day to day churn
Search Console generative AI reportFreeImpressions in Google generative AI features, by page, country, device and dateClicks, and a split between AI Overviews and AI Mode
Bing AI PerformanceFreeCitations in Copilot, Bing summaries and partners, with grounding queriesClicks, ChatGPT and other assistants
Server logs and referralsFree if you keep logsFetches by AI crawlers and visits that arrive from AI productsAnswers that name you without a visit, and visits that carry no referrer
Readiness scan (SeenLens)Free scan; USD 49 once per URL for the full reportWhether AI crawlers and agents can read the pageWhether any AI product mentions you

Method 1: how do you run a prompt panel?

A prompt panel is a fixed list of questions that you ask each AI product on a schedule. It is the only method that shows what a searcher could see.

  1. Write 20 to 30 prompts that a buyer or reader would ask. Include some that name your brand and some that name only your topic.
  2. Run the same prompts every week in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Mode.
  3. Log the date, product, prompt, whether your brand was named, whether your URL was cited and which competitors appeared.
  4. Note when an answer has no citations. Gemini and Copilot often give none, so a missing citation there is not a loss.
  5. Compare weeks. Judge a prompt by how often you appear over seven days, as Ahrefs advises.

Limits: results vary with the day, the account and the location, and you only test the prompts you thought of. This method is manual work, and paid trackers automate it. This is our opinion and not a study: while AI referrals stay below about 100 visits a month, a manual panel is enough.

Method 2: what does the Search Console generative AI report show?

Google added a generative AI performance report to Search Console on 2026-06-03. It shows impressions for your URLs in generative AI features in Search and Discover. Its dimensions are pages, countries, devices (Search only) and dates (hourly to monthly). Google launched it for a subset of sites and says it reached all sites worldwide by 2026-08-31.

The announcement does not mention clicks. It also describes no filter that separates AI Overviews from AI Mode. Use the report to see which pages Google shows in AI features. For a missing page, read why a site does not appear in AI Overviews.

Method 3: what does Bing AI Performance add?

Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance counts citations in Microsoft Copilot, Bing AI summaries and partner products. It is the only free report we know that lists grounding queries. It shows no clicks. The guide Bing AI Performance report has the steps to open it and use the queries.

Method 4: how do server logs show AI visibility?

Your access log records two signals. The first is a fetch by an AI crawler. The second is a visit that arrives from an AI product. Neither proves a citation. A crawler fetch means the product can read the page. A referral means a person followed a link.

AI user agents to look for in logs
User agentOperatorPurpose
OAI-SearchBotOpenAICrawls pages for ChatGPT search results
ChatGPT-UserOpenAIFetches a page when a person asks ChatGPT about it
Claude-SearchBotAnthropicCrawls pages to improve Claude search results
Claude-UserAnthropicFetches a page when a person asks Claude a question that needs it
PerplexityBotPerplexitySurfaces and links sites in Perplexity search results
Perplexity-UserPerplexityFetches a page for a user question; it generally ignores robots.txt

GPTBot and ClaudeBot collect training data and tell you little about search visibility. Count the search and user agents in your log with this command:

Shell
grep -oE 'OAI-SearchBot|ChatGPT-User|Claude-SearchBot|Claude-User|PerplexityBot|Perplexity-User' access.log \
  | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

For referrals, count the referrer field in the combined log format. This command lists visits that came from common AI products:

Shell
grep -E '"https?://(www\.)?(chatgpt\.com|chat\.openai\.com|perplexity\.ai|claude\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com)' access.log \
  | awk -F'"' '{print $4}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

In Google Analytics 4, build a custom channel group with a rule above Referral that matches the same hosts. A user agent string can be faked, so treat the counts as a guide.

Why do some AI visits look like direct traffic?

ChatGPT usually adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to citation links. Some links arrive without a referrer and appear as Direct. Two vendors (llmpulse and a Remote Work Europe report) claim the share of tagged visits fell from about 98 percent to about 67 percent between 2026-10-08 and 2026-10-15. These are vendor claims. OpenAI's crawler documentation does not mention the tag. Log utm_source together with the referrer, and expect an undercount.

Scale matters too. SE Ranking studied 101,574 sites (published 2026-06-18) and found that AI referrals made up 0.32 percent of web traffic in 2026. Small numbers are normal.

Method 5: what does a readiness scan check?

A readiness scan checks whether AI crawlers and agents can reach and read your page. It cannot tell you whether any AI product names you. The SeenLens scan is free. It runs 43 checks on one URL in five dimensions: AI crawler access, content structure, structured data, agent readiness and technical delivery. It returns a score from 0 to 100 and the top three issues. A score measures readiness and not actual AI mentions.

Run the scan when logs show no AI crawler visits, or when your prompt panel never names you. The AI crawler checker reads robots.txt rules for 14 crawlers and compares the page response for a browser and four AI crawlers. The GEO audit checklist walks through the same ground by hand.

Scan a page for AI readiness

In what order should you use the methods?

  1. Run the readiness scan first. If an AI crawler cannot fetch the page, nothing else matters.
  2. Verify your site in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Both reports are free, and data starts only after you verify.
  3. Check your logs for the search and user agents above. See is my website visible to AI for the access steps.
  4. Start a weekly prompt panel.
  5. Review the trend each month. Act on gaps, then check again.

Frequently asked questions about checking AI visibility

How do I check if my website is visible to AI?

Test access and then test presence. Access: confirm that AI crawlers can fetch your pages, using a readiness scan and your logs. Presence: run a fixed set of prompts in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and AI Mode, and read the Search Console and Bing reports.

Is there a free AI visibility checker?

Yes, for readiness. The SeenLens scan and the AI crawler checker are free. They test whether AI systems can read your page. Free tools do not show whether an AI product mentions your brand. Use the free Google and Bing reports and a manual prompt panel for that.

How often should I check AI visibility?

Run the prompt panel weekly and review the trend monthly. Single checks mislead, because 50 to 60 percent of citations changed between answers in the Ahrefs study.

Can Google Analytics show traffic from ChatGPT?

Partly. Visits with a chatgpt.com referrer or a utm_source=chatgpt.com tag appear. Visits without either look like Direct traffic. Vendors report that tagging fell in October 2026.

Do AI visibility scores predict citations?

No. A readiness score measures whether AI systems can read and use your page. No score promises a mention or a citation.

How do I increase my AI visibility?

Fix access problems first, then write pages that answer the questions your buyers ask. Read the GEO audit checklist for the full list.

Sources