2026-11-02 · Last updated 2026-11-02

Free AEO checker for local businesses: what it tests and what no checker can tell you

AEO, or answer engine optimisation, means making your business easy for AI assistants to find, read and quote. Our free AEO checker tests the part you control on your own website in about 20 seconds, then gives you a score out of 100 and your top five fixes. No account, no card. If you're here because ChatGPT never names you, why your business isn't showing up on ChatGPT walks through the seven usual causes.

What AEO means for a local business

Classic SEO is about where your page sits in a list of links. AEO is about whether your name comes up when someone asks an assistant a question, such as "who's a good locksmith in Fremantle?". The assistant builds its answer from what it can read about you across the web, so a local business needs two things: a website the assistants' search bots can read, and the same details repeated on other sites they trust.

Most of the groundwork is the same as local SEO: consistent name, address and phone, a Google Business Profile, reviews and directory listings. AEO adds a few AI-specific checks, such as which AI bots your robots.txt lets in and whether your pages answer questions in their first sentence.

What our AEO checker tests

The checker reads up to six pages of your site (the home page, robots.txt, llms.txt and up to three linked pages such as contact and about), obeys your robots.txt, and runs six checks:

1. AI crawler access: whether the search and answer bots, such as OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Bingbot, may read your home page. Training bots such as GPTBot are reported separately and cost no points.
2. Business schema: Organization or LocalBusiness data with your details and sameAs links to your profiles.
3. Name, address and phone: whether they match across your home page, contact page and schema.
4. Google Business Profile and reviews: a link to your profile and reviews people can see.
5. Fresh, answer-first pages: a visible updated date and question headings with short, direct answers.
6. llms.txt: checked, but always labelled optional.

Then you tick the directories you're listed on. The audit guide explains how the six checks and your ticks add up to the score.

What no AEO checker can tell you

Whether ChatGPT will name you tomorrow. Answers change with the wording, the person asking, their location and the day. A tool that reports a "ChatGPT ranking" from a single query is showing you one snapshot. Tools that ask an AI model through its developer interface can also get different answers from the chat apps people actually use.

How you look off your own site. We don't scrape directories or review sites. You tick where you're listed, and that counts for up to 20 of the 100 points. Owners who've worked on this report that listings and reviews on other sites helped more than schema or llms.txt did, so don't skip that part of the result.

That's why the checker also has a test panel: six questions to paste into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude, and a tally of how many of the 24 answers named you. It runs in your browser. We don't ask any assistant on your behalf.

How to choose an AEO checker

Whichever tool you use, ask it these questions:

• Does it separate search bots from training bots? Blocking GPTBot is a reasonable choice and shouldn't cost you points. Blocking OAI-SearchBot is a real problem.
• Does it compare your details across pages, or only check whether schema exists?
• Does it say plainly whether it asks an AI model, which one, and that one answer isn't a ranking?
• Does it count your listings elsewhere at all?
• Does it make llms.txt sound essential? None of the big assistants has said it uses llms.txt to pick businesses.
• Do you have to hand over your email to see the result? Ours shows it straight away; emailing the report is optional.

What to fix first

Work down the checker's top five fixes, which come worst first. As a rule: unblock the search bots before anything else, then make your name, address and phone match, then add or complete your schema, then link your Google Business Profile and show reviews. Question headings come next and llms.txt last. After that, get listed on the directories you couldn't tick.

FAQ