Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about CiteCrawl, GEO audits, and AI search visibility.
General
What is GEO?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It is the practice of optimizing website content to be cited, recommended, and trusted by AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Microsoft Copilot. GEO is the AI-era equivalent of SEO.
What is CiteCrawl?
CiteCrawl is a GEO audit service that scores your website on its readiness to be cited by AI search engines. It analyses 35+ signals across technical SEO, performance, content structure, authority, and agentic readiness, then delivers a detailed PDF report with actionable remediation steps.
What is an AI Answer Readiness Score?
Your AI Answer Readiness Score is a number from 0 to 100 that measures how likely AI search engines are to cite, recommend, and trust your brand in their generated responses. A score of 80+ means you are well-positioned. Below 40 means AI systems are unlikely to recommend your brand.
Why does AI search visibility matter?
AI search engines are replacing traditional search for a growing share of queries. In 2026, traditional search volume dropped 25%. AI-referred traffic converts 4.4x higher than organic search. If your brand is not visible to AI, you are losing customers to competitors who are.
Audit Process
How long does an audit take?
Most audits complete in 2-5 minutes. Your detailed PDF report is emailed to you automatically and is also available for download from your dashboard.
What does the audit check?
CiteCrawl runs 35+ automated checks across 5 categories: Technical Foundation (robots.txt, llms.txt, Schema.org, sitemap, canonical URLs, Open Graph), Performance (TTFB, LCP, INP, page weight), Content Structure (answer-first formatting, headings, FAQ presence, content depth, readability, internal linking), Authority & Trust (author credentials, content freshness, third-party platform presence, citations), and Agentic Readiness (SSR, HTTPS, security headers, accessibility, breadcrumbs).
What do I get in the report?
A detailed PDF with your overall score, category breakdowns, per-check analysis with "Why AI Cares" context, evidence from your page, step-by-step proposed fixes, an action plan with estimated score uplift per fix, and a 90-day sprint schedule.
Can I audit any website?
CiteCrawl works with any publicly accessible website. The audit automatically detects your site type (SaaS, e-commerce, local business, professional services, or content) and adjusts third-party platform relevance weighting accordingly.
Scoring
How is the score calculated?
Each check earns points up to its maximum. The raw points are summed across all categories and normalised to a 0-100 scale using the formula: (rawTotal / maxPossible) * 100. This means every check contributes proportionally to your overall score.
What do the grade letters mean?
A+ (90-100): AI Ready — excellent position. A (80-89): Strong — well-positioned with minor gaps. B (70-79): Good — appearing in some AI answers. C (60-69): Fair — significant gaps remain. D (50-59): Needs Work — many signals missing. F (0-49): Poor — unlikely to be cited by AI.
How accurate are the score uplift estimates?
Score uplift estimates are calculated from the exact scoring formula — each estimate shows how many points you would recover if that specific check improved to full marks. They are labelled as "estimated" because a retest may produce slightly different results (e.g. page speed varies per request).
Pricing & Billing
How much does an audit cost?
A single audit costs $49 (one-time) and includes a full PDF report with actionable recommendations. The quarterly plan is $69 per quarter and includes automated audits every 90 days with score tracking over time.
Can I cancel the quarterly plan?
Yes, you can cancel your quarterly subscription at any time. You will continue to have access until the end of your current billing period.
What payment methods do you accept?
We accept all major credit and debit cards through Stripe. All payments are processed securely — we never store your card details.
Do you offer refunds?
Because the audit is delivered instantly as a digital report, we do not offer refunds once the audit has been generated. If you experience a technical issue that prevents your audit from completing, contact us and we will resolve it or issue a full refund.
Technical
What types of websites does CiteCrawl support?
CiteCrawl works with any publicly accessible website built on any technology stack. We detect whether the site uses server-side rendering, check for JavaScript-rendered content, and evaluate the raw HTML response that AI crawlers would see.
How does site-type detection work for third-party platforms?
CiteCrawl analyses your page content, meta tags, and domain characteristics to classify your site as SaaS, e-commerce, local business, professional services, or content. Each type has different relevance weightings for the 16 third-party platforms we check.
Is my website data stored?
We store your audit results (scores, check data, and report) securely. We do not store your website content beyond what is needed to generate the report. See our Privacy Policy for full details on data handling.