To be cited by Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity, a page has to be findable by their crawlers, answer the question directly in its first lines with specific facts, carry schema that matches the text, belong to an entity the engines can identify, and be supported by what other sites say. Here are the twelve checks, in the order we run them.
1. Is the page indexed and eligible for a snippet?
Google’s AI features guidance states that a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet to be used in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Check the URL in Search Console’s inspection tool and search for it directly. No index, no citation. This single check rules out more pages than any other.
2. Are the right crawlers allowed?
OpenAI uses GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot; Perplexity uses PerplexityBot; Google uses Googlebot for AI Overviews and Google-Extended as a control for Gemini training. Read your robots.txt line by line. We regularly find a blanket block added years ago by a security plugin. Decide deliberately which bots you allow and record why.
3. Does the page render without JavaScript?
Fetch the page with scripts disabled. If the main content, the prices or the FAQ only appear after a script runs, some crawlers will see a blank page. Server-rendered HTML with the content in the source is the safe baseline.
4. Is the answer in the first 60 words?
Read only the first paragraph. Does it answer the question the page title asks, with a specific fact? Pages that open with “Welcome to our company, founded in…” are rarely lifted. Pages that open with “A bilingual launch store with up to 50 products takes two to three weeks” are. This is the highest-return edit on most sites, and it costs an hour per page.
5. Are the headings the questions?
Engines match questions to headings. “How much does a Shopify store cost in India?” as an H2, followed by a direct answer, is lifted far more often than “Pricing”. Pull the questions from People Also Ask, from Search Console queries and from your sales inbox.
6. Does the page carry specifics a model can quote?
Numbers, dates, named processes, prices, timelines. Our own audits score this as “evidence”, and it is where most sites fail: a law firm we audited scored 25 out of 100 overall, largely because its pages contained no fact a model could repeat. Replace every adjective you can with a measurable claim, and only claim what you can show.
7. Does the schema match the text?
FAQPage for the questions on the page, HowTo for procedures, Product with offers and reviews for products, Service for services, Organization and Person for who you are. The rule is simple: the schema says what the page says, nothing more. Validate it, and re-validate when the copy changes.
8. Is the entity consistent everywhere?
Your name, description, address, contact details and offer should be identical on your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, directories, Shopify Shop, app stores and press. Engines resolve entities by matching these. Two slightly different company names, or an old address on a directory, dilute the match. Add sameAs links in Organization schema to the profiles you control.
9. Is there third-party proof, and is it on the page?
Generative engines weigh what others say. Reviews, directory listings, press mentions, expert quotes and forum discussion all count. Surface them where a crawler reads them: a reviews section with Review schema, a press line with links, a partner badge with a link back. Then earn more off-site, because a brand described only by itself is a weak source.
10. Do you have the comparison pages the engines are asked for?
A large share of AI prompts are comparisons: “best X for Y”, “A vs B”, “which should I choose”. If your site has no page that honestly answers those, the engines cite whoever does, usually a roundup. Write the buying guide yourself, include competitors fairly, and give the direct recommendation with the reasoning.
11. Is the page fresh and dated?
Show a visible “last updated” date and keep it true. Update numbers, prices and screenshots. Live-retrieval engines favour pages that look current; stale pages with 2022 prices are skipped or, worse, quoted wrongly.
12. Are you measuring with a fixed prompt set?
Write 30 to 60 prompts your buyers would type, in their markets and languages. Run them monthly across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Record citations, descriptions, quoted pages and competitors. Score the four dimensions (evidence, structure, authority, crawlability). Without this, you cannot know whether anything you did worked.
Eleven of these checks are an afternoon’s work for most sites. The twelfth is the one that turns GEO from a belief into a number.
Why it is worth doing now
Pew Research Center found an AI summary on 18% of real Google searches in a March 2025 US panel, and that users clicked an ordinary result on 8% of visits with a summary against 15% without. Ahrefs estimated in February 2026 that the top result’s click-through rate falls 58% when an AI Overview appears. Seer Interactive measured organic click-through on informational queries with an Overview dropping from 1.76% to 0.61% between June 2024 and September 2025. The click is moving into the answer. These twelve checks are how you follow it.
Want us to run the twelve checks on your site?
The free visibility check covers the first three points and a ten-prompt citation test, within two working days.
Get the free checkFrequently asked questions
Does blocking GPTBot stop ChatGPT from citing my site?
Blocking GPTBot stops OpenAI’s training crawler; OAI-SearchBot is the one that powers ChatGPT search citations. If you block both, you will not be cited. Decide per bot and write it in robots.txt.
Does FAQ schema still matter after Google reduced FAQ rich results?
Google shows FAQ rich results for fewer sites than it did, but structured question-and-answer pairs still help every engine understand which passage answers which question. Keep the schema accurate and keep the visible FAQ.
Can a new website be cited by AI engines?
Yes, especially by live-retrieval engines such as Perplexity, if the page is the clearest source on a specific question. Authority takes longer to build, so start with narrow, specific questions where you can be the best answer.
Related: What is GEO?, AEO vs SEO vs GEO, GEO services, AEO services.