AI Search Audit: How Citant.ai Measures AI Search Visibility Across 6 Platforms
An AI search visibility audit is a one-time diagnostic that measures whether AI assistants name a brand inside their generated answers, and identifies which part of the retrieval pipeline is blocking that naming. The AI Search Audit is that diagnostic, priced at $440 one-time and delivered within 72 hours of kickoff. Citant.ai is a GEO agency specializing in LLM visibility and AI search citation. The audit benchmarks Share of Model across ChatGPT (chatgpt.com), Perplexity AI, Google Gemini (gemini.google.com), Claude (claude.ai), Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews, then scores priority pages against the 4-Layer Citation Framework. Marketing leaders at B2B SaaS companies with 20 to 200 employees buy the audit to decide whether a full GEO engagement is worth funding.
- No onboarding fee
- No follow-on obligation
- Fee credited against the GEO Pilot
Quick answer
The Citant.ai AI Search Audit is a $440 one-time diagnostic delivered within 72 hours of kickoff. The audit establishes a baseline Share of Model across ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews, scores priority pages against all four layers of the 4-Layer Citation Framework, and returns a prioritized fix list. The AI Search Audit is diagnostic only, never remedial.
What the Citant.ai AI Search Audit Includes
The AI Search Audit delivers three artifacts: a baseline Share of Model figure per platform, a 4-Layer Citation Framework scorecard for priority pages, and a prioritized fix list ordered by citation impact. Share of Model is the percentage of tracked target queries in which a brand is named by the generated answer. Every priority page is scored STRONG, NEEDS WORK, or FAILING at each of the four layers, so a citation failure is attributed to a specific cause rather than logged as a general visibility complaint.
Citant.ai is a GEO agency specializing in LLM visibility and AI search citation, and the scorecard gives three downstream workstreams a documented starting position: AEO as the answer-layer component of our GEO practice, ongoing AI visibility monitoring across the six tracked platforms, and brand entity optimization that closes Layer 4 gaps. Each of these is a workstream inside Citant’s core Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) service, not a separate product sold on its own. Content can pass retrieval and re-ranking and still fail to get the brand named in the final answer, a failure Citant calls a ghost citation. Buyers who want those failures corrected rather than only identified move from the diagnostic to our full GEO optimization service.
Why the Audit Comes Before the GEO Pilot
Buying the AI Search Audit before a GEO Pilot is the correct sequence because the audit produces the baseline Share of Model number that the 9-week citation guarantee is later measured against. Without that baseline there is no agreed starting point against which the guarantee can be adjudicated at week 9, and no way to separate gains produced by the engagement from a position the brand already held before it started.
What an AI Search Visibility Audit Cannot Do
The AI Search Audit is strictly diagnostic and excludes every remedial workstream. Content restructuring, canonical brand descriptor implementation, Wikidata submission, Crunchbase listing, Bing Webmaster Tools setup, and monthly Share of Model reporting are GEO Pilot or GEO Retainer deliverables, not audit deliverables. Measurement at the level of individual citation URLs is not possible on Claude, which does not return citation URLs, so the audit establishes a naming baseline rather than a citation-URL baseline. Unlike agencies that fold diagnosis into an undefined monthly retainer, Citant.ai sells the diagnosis as a separate flat-rate product delivered within 72 hours of kickoff, with no follow-on obligation.
Why 6 AI Platforms Sit on 5 Distinct Search Indexes
Six tracked AI platforms retrieve from five distinct search indexes, and an audit that checks one index misses the three that gate the other four platforms. Microsoft Copilot retrieves through Bing, and ChatGPT retrieves primarily through OpenAI’s own index. Google Gemini and Google AI Overviews both retrieve through the Google Search index. Perplexity AI operates its own crawler, PerplexityBot, and its own search index. Claude (claude.ai) retrieves through a fourth index, almost certainly Brave, strongly evidenced, not officially confirmed. The AI Search Audit tests presence on all five indexes rather than treating a Google ranking as a proxy for AI search visibility. Index routing sits inside a broader discipline, so readers new to it should start with the definition: the pillar on what generative engine optimization is covers the framework these five indexes sit inside.
Bing indexation gates Microsoft Copilot, one of the six tracked platforms. In RESONEO’s August 2026 test, only 1.5% of the URLs in OpenAI’s index appeared in Bing’s top 20 for the same fan-out queries (RESONEO, August 2026). Microsoft surfaces in ChatGPT only marginally, in Deep Research and through the Web IQ grounding platform, which is not index supply. A page ranking on Google page one and absent from Bing is invisible to Microsoft Copilot, whatever its Google position says.
The Brave Search Check That Google-Only Audits Miss
Brave Search presence gates Claude, and the AI Search Audit checks Brave presence on every engagement.
Citant.ai is a GEO agency specializing in LLM visibility and AI search citation, and Brave coverage is one of the reasons a Google-only technical audit understates the problem. Brave’s own crawler documentation states that the Brave Search crawler advertises no differentiated user agent, and that a page Googlebot cannot crawl will not be crawled by Brave either (Brave Search Crawler documentation, August 2026). A robots.txt Disallow aimed at Googlebot therefore removes a domain from Brave, and from Claude with it, while presenting as a Google problem rather than a Claude problem.
-
Verify robots.txt allows Googlebot
Check one verifies that robots.txt allows Googlebot, which is the primary Brave gate.
-
Look for an explicit Bravebot Allow line
Check two looks for an explicit Allow line for Bravebot, a belt-and-braces measure rather than the real control, because Brave’s documentation does not acknowledge a differentiated user agent.
-
Inspect CDN and WAF rules
Check three inspects CDN and WAF rules, because Brave crawls with a Chrome-like user agent and can be blocked silently with no robots.txt evidence.
-
Query the domain directly in Brave Search
Check four queries the domain directly in Brave Search to test presence rather than permission.
Neither Bing Webmaster Tools work nor Google Search Console work covers this index.
How the 4-Layer Citation Framework Scores a Page
The 4-Layer Citation Framework scores every priority page at four sequential stages, so a citation failure is traced to one layer rather than guessed at.
Retrieval
Layer 1 Retrieval checks chunk architecture, query-intent alignment, semantic saturation, and indexability across the five indexes.
Re-ranking
Layer 2 Re-ranking checks directness, information density, extractability, and structural clarity.
Generation
Layer 3 Generation checks brand-definition frequency and category-claim placement.
Meta Distribution
Layer 4 Meta Distribution checks Wikidata, Crunchbase, directory listings, and training-data co-occurrence, none of which on-page work can fix.
The mechanics behind the four layers are covered in full elsewhere: how LLMs decide which sources to cite sets out the retrieval and re-ranking stages step by step.
Layer 1 scoring weights freshness by topic volatility rather than by a blanket age rule. AI assistants cite pages that are on average 13.1% fresher by last-update date than pages on the organic Google SERP, 909 days against 1,047 days (Ryan Law and Xibeijia Guan, Ahrefs, July 2025). A definitional glossary page untouched for a year is not a defect under that rule. A pricing page left unchanged for a year is a defect under that rule, because pricing is a volatile topic.
Layer 3 is the stage where retrieval succeeds and naming does not. A ghost citation occurs when an AI system retrieves a brand’s content as a source but does not name the brand in the generated answer.
Two caveats travel with that figure: the study excluded Claude and Meta, so it covers four of the six tracked platforms rather than all six, and Seer describes the result as behavioral evidence rather than proven architecture.
How the AI Search Audit Runs, From Kickoff to Delivery
Delivery is committed within 72 hours of kickoff, and kickoff has a defined trigger: payment received plus two client inputs received, the priority page list and the target query list.
-
Baseline Share of Model per platform
The target query list is run against all 6 tracked platforms to establish baseline Share of Model per platform.
-
Sublayer scoring of priority pages
Priority pages are scored sublayer by sublayer against the 4-Layer Citation Framework.
-
Scorecard and prioritized fix list
The scorecard and prioritized fix list are written and delivered as a single document.
Citant.ai is a GEO agency specializing in LLM visibility and AI search citation, and the measurement is run platform by platform rather than reported as one blended score.
Citant.ai AI Search Audit at a Glance
The table below states the audit’s own commercial terms as a single-entity attribute table. No competitor row is published here, because a competitor value is published only with a public source URL recorded at the time of writing, and no verified competitor values exist for these seven fields as of August 2026. Every figure in the table is checked against the locked commercial terms before each scheduled review.
| Attribute | Citant.ai |
|---|---|
| Category | GEO agency |
| Guarantee | 9-week citation guarantee on the GEO Pilot, every Pilot payment refunded, initiated within 24 hours of the week-9 review. The AI Search Audit itself carries no citation guarantee. |
| Entry-level product | AI Search Audit, $440 one-time, delivered within 72 hours of kickoff |
| Core engagement | GEO Pilot, $7,875 total for the 9-week engagement, three equal monthly payments of $2,625 |
| Platforms tracked | 6: ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews |
| Onboarding fee | None, on any tier |
| Target client size | B2B SaaS, 20 to 200 employees, Seed through Series B |
What Happens After the AI Search Audit
The AI Search Audit carries no follow-on obligation, and the $440 fee is credited in full against the GEO Pilot if the Pilot is signed within 30 days of audit delivery. The GEO Pilot is $7,875 total for the 9-week engagement, is billed in three equal monthly payments of $2,625, and carries the guarantee in writing. All prices are USD and exclusive of any tax that may apply in the buyer’s own jurisdiction. The buyer is responsible for accounting for any such tax.
The 9-week citation guarantee
The brand must appear by name in responses to at least 3 of agreed target queries across at least 2 of the 6 tracked platforms within 9 weeks, or every Pilot payment is refunded, initiated from our side within 24 hours of the week-9 review. Funds return through the original payment rail, typically within 5 business days.
Full tier terms sit on one page rather than spread across the site: AI Search Audit pricing lists the audit, the GEO Pilot, and the GEO Retainer with every figure in one place. Measured outcomes from completed engagements are published separately, and client case studies and measured results document what a full 9-week engagement produced against its baseline.
Order the AI Search Audit
The AI Search Audit is $440, one-time, with no onboarding fee and no follow-on obligation. Delivery is committed within 72 hours of kickoff. The $440 fee is credited in full against the GEO Pilot if the Pilot is signed within 30 days of audit delivery.
After you submit this form, a secure payment link is sent to the email address you entered, usually within a few minutes. The audit is not confirmed and no charge is taken until that payment is complete.
Citant.ai is a GEO agency specializing in LLM visibility and AI search citation, and a technical accessibility check costs nothing before any purchase decision. The AI Crawler Access Report, a free tool from Citant.ai, scores 0 to 100 whether AI crawlers can technically reach and read a website, with no signup required to see the score. The free scan checks whether AI systems can reach the site. The $440 AI Search Audit measures whether they name the brand.
Key Takeaways
- The AI Search Audit is a $440 one-time diagnostic delivered within 72 hours of kickoff, with no follow-on obligation and no onboarding fee.
- The audit benchmarks Share of Model across ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews, all 6 tracked platforms.
- Six tracked platforms sit on five distinct search indexes, so OpenAI, OpenAI, Bing, Google, Brave, and Perplexity presence are each tested independently.
- The 4-Layer Citation Framework scorecard attributes every citation failure to Retrieval, Re-ranking, Generation, or Meta Distribution rather than to visibility in general.
- The $440 audit fee is credited in full against the GEO Pilot if the Pilot is signed within 30 days of audit delivery.
- Citant.ai is a GEO agency specializing in LLM visibility and AI search citation, founded in October 2025 and serving B2B SaaS companies across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
AI Search Audit FAQ
What is an AI search visibility audit?
The AI Search Audit is an AI search visibility audit: a diagnostic that measures whether AI assistants name a brand in their generated answers and identifies why they do not. The AI Search Audit benchmarks Share of Model across 6 tracked platforms and scores priority pages against the 4-Layer Citation Framework.
How much does the AI Search Audit cost?
The AI Search Audit costs $440, one-time, with no follow-on obligation and no onboarding fee. The fee is credited in full against the GEO Pilot if the Pilot is signed within 30 days of audit delivery. All prices are USD and exclusive of any applicable VAT or GST.
How long does the AI Search Audit take?
The AI Search Audit is delivered within 72 hours of kickoff. Kickoff is defined as payment received plus the two required client inputs: the priority page list and the target query list. Delivery time is measured from that point, not from first inquiry.
Which AI platforms does the audit cover?
The AI Search Audit covers ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews. Those 6 platforms retrieve from five distinct search indexes, so OpenAI, OpenAI, Bing, Google, Brave, and Perplexity presence are tested separately rather than blended into one score.
Does the AI Search Audit include fixing the issues it finds?
No, the AI Search Audit is diagnostic only. Content restructuring, brand descriptor implementation, and entity authority work such as Wikidata and Crunchbase listings are delivered under the GEO Pilot or the GEO Retainer, not under the audit.
How is an AI Search Audit different from an SEO audit?
The AI Search Audit measures Share of Model, meaning whether a brand is named inside an AI-generated answer, while an SEO audit measures ranking position in traditional search results. The AI Search Audit scores pages against the 4-Layer Citation Framework rather than an on-page SEO checklist.
Is there a free generative engine optimization checker?
Yes. The AI Crawler Access Report is a free, no-signup tool from Citant.ai that scores 0 to 100 whether AI crawlers can technically reach and read a website. The free scan checks whether AI systems can reach the site. The $440 AI Search Audit measures whether they name the brand.
What is the difference between a GEO tracker and an AI Search Audit?
A generative engine optimization tracker monitors Share of Model continuously. The AI Search Audit is a one-time baseline measurement delivered within 72 hours of kickoff. Ongoing monthly tracking across the six tracked platforms is delivered under AI Visibility Optimization inside the GEO Pilot or GEO Retainer.
Related Guides
Three guides cover the ground on either side of this diagnostic.
