Is the AI hiding your business?
You rank on Google. But buyers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI — and most AI answers cite sources that don't rank at all. Answerlord grades whether those engines recommend you, or your competitors.
Free · Takes 60 seconds · We ask the engines — never a guessed number
A real report on our own website
See the evidence before you trust the score.
Answerlord scored 0/100 in its September 15, 2026 test, with 14 of 15 responses available. The saved report includes the exact questions, answers, and limitations—including questions that drifted into an adjacent category.
This is a historical snapshot. It does not measure all AI searches or predict lost sales.
We think like a buyer
We generate 5 real buyer-intent prompts for your niche — "best X for Y", "X alternatives", "cheap X for Z" — the questions buyers ask before they purchase.
We interrogate the engines
We run every prompt live against ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews and capture exactly what they say — citations, competitors named, sentiment.
We score, not guess
A transparent 0–100 score from four weighted signals. Every point is explainable. Unreachable engines are excluded — not penalized. No black boxes.
A score you can argue with
We show our work. Every point is traceable.
Are you cited by at least one AI engine across the five buyer-intent prompts — the line between existing and not existing to a robot.
What fraction of the reachable engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) cite you, counting only engines we actually got data from.
Where you land in the answer — being named first earns full credit; being named further down (after several rivals) earns less. If the rank can't be read from the text, we fall back to your share of voice rather than guess.
When an engine mentions you, whether it speaks positively, neutrally, or negatively about you.
Start free. Build your SEO, AEO & GEO visibility.
Free Grade
- ✓Domain grade across 3 engines
- ✓5 buyer prompts
- ✓On-page SEO & AEO audit
- ✓Continue / Modify / Replace plan
- ✓No login
AEO Builder Kit
- ✓Full prompt library
- ✓Schema + FAQ templates
- ✓Answer-first & triplet frameworks
- ✓AEO Bones Checklist
- ✓Personalized prompt for YOUR domain
15% discount available after email verification.
One visibility strategy, three layers
SEO gets you in the room. AEO makes you quotable. GEO makes you trusted. Together they decide whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI say your name out loud. Start with the fundamentals — new guides land here regularly.
What Is AEO? Answer Engine Optimization, Explained
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of getting your business named when buyers ask AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI for the best option. Here's how it works and why it matters.
7 min readHow-ToDoes Your Site Block AI Crawlers? The Free robots.txt + llms.txt Check
AI engines can't cite what they can't read. How to check in seconds whether your robots.txt blocks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI crawlers — and whether you publish an llms.txt — free, no login.
5 min readBuyer's GuidesFree AEO Tools in 2026 (and the Cheapest Paid Upgrades)
The cheapest AEO tool is free: Answerlord grades AI visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews at $0, no login. Here's every genuinely free AEO tool in 2026, and the cheapest paid steps up.
6 min readGrade any client's AI visibility in one tool call
Answerlord ships a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server with one tool — grade_domain(domain, niche) — returning the same clean JSON the website uses. Agencies and AI assistants can audit a prospect, build a report, or monitor a portfolio without scraping or parsing a single page of HTML.
One MCP tool
Drop it into Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP client and grade domains conversationally.
Clean JSON, never faked
Score, per-engine breakdown, named competitor gaps. Unreachable engines are excluded, not guessed.
Agent-readable site
We publish an llms.txt and structured data so agents can understand and recommend us accurately.
Make AEO a first-class CI/CD check
Every deploy that hurts your AI visibility should fail like a broken test. The Answerlord REST API gives you a score, per-engine breakdown, named gaps, and evidence-grounded fix recommendations — all in one authenticated call.
Grade on every merge
POST to /api/v1/grade from GitHub Actions. If the score drops below your threshold, fail the check.
RAG-grounded recommendations
Every suggestion cites a real crawled source with an evidence_url — no hallucinated advice.
Webhook alerts
Register a webhook and we'll POST when your score drops, a new competitor appears, or you lose a cited engine.
Batch + async
Queue up to 50 domains in one call. Ideal for agencies monitoring a full client portfolio.
# Grade on every deploy
curl -s -X GET \
"https://answerlord.com/api/v1/score?domain=yourapp.com&niche=saas+project+management" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ANSWERLORD_API_KEY" | jq '.score'
# → 47
# Get evidence-grounded fix recommendations
curl -s -X POST https://answerlord.com/api/v1/recommendations \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ANSWERLORD_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"domain":"yourapp.com","niche":"saas project management"}' \
| jq '.recommendations[0].title'
# → "Add FAQ schema to pricing + comparison pages"AI visibility, answered
The questions buyers ask about getting cited by AI — answered plainly.
What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?+
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of getting your business recommended by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Instead of ranking a blue link, AEO is about being the named answer when a buyer asks an AI for the best option in your category.
How do I get my business cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI?+
Publish content that directly answers the exact questions buyers ask, lead with a short quotable answer, add FAQ and Organization structured data so engines can extract it, and earn third-party citations (reviews, community answers, roundups) where competitors are already mentioned. Answerlord shows you the precise queries you're missing and a step-by-step plan to win them.
What is a good AI visibility score?+
Answerlord scores AI visibility from 0 to 100. 0–39 means AI engines rarely or never cite you (AI invisibility). 40–69 is partial visibility — you appear sometimes, usually alongside many competitors. 70–89 is a strong signal, and 90–100 is category dominance. Most businesses that have never optimized for AI score below 40.
How is the AI visibility score calculated?+
The score blends four transparent signals: whether any engine cites you at all (30 pts), how many reachable engines cite you (30 pts), your prominence when cited versus competitors (25 pts), and sentiment (15 pts). Every point is explainable, and engines we can't reach are excluded rather than guessed — we never show a fabricated metric.
How is AEO different from SEO?+
SEO optimizes for ranking links on a search results page; AEO optimizes for being the answer an AI engine gives directly. AI answers often cite only a handful of sources and frequently end the buyer's research before they click a website — so being named in the answer matters more than ranking #3 on page one.
Is Answerlord free?+
Yes — grading your domain's AI visibility is free and requires no login. You get a 0–100 score, a per-engine breakdown, your biggest competitor gaps, and a concrete fix plan. Paid options (the AEO Builder Kit and Answerlord Pro) add ready-made templates and ongoing tracking, but the grade and fix plan are free.
How much does answer engine optimization cost?+
AEO costs anywhere from $0 to $25,000+ per month in 2026. Measuring your AI visibility is free with Answerlord; self-serve AEO software typically runs $10–$250/month, consultants charge about $100–$150/hour, and mid-market agency retainers typically land at $2,000–$10,000/month. Most small businesses get furthest with a free grade plus a one-time playbook like the $47 AEO Builder Kit.
What is the best AEO tool?+
It depends on the job. Answerlord is the free way to measure AI visibility — a 0–100 score across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews with named competitor gaps and a fix plan. Enterprise teams tracking thousands of prompts daily use dedicated monitoring platforms, and classic SEO suites offer AI-visibility add-ons. Measure first: it's free and tells you what, if anything, to buy next.
Can I grade AI visibility from an AI agent or MCP client?+
Yes. Answerlord ships a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server exposing a single tool, grade_domain(domain, niche), that returns the same clean JSON the website uses. Agents in Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP client can grade any domain's AI visibility in one tool call — no scraping or HTML parsing required.
Already know you want in?
Skip ahead and create your free account. You'll get a dashboard that tracks your AI visibility over time, saves every grade, and benchmarks the competitors the engines name. No password — we email you a one-click link and a code.
- ✓ Score history & trends
- ✓ Saved grades in one place
- ✓ Upgrade to Pro anytime
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The AI is answering your buyers right now.
Find out if it's saying your name — or your competitor's.
Free · Takes 60 seconds · We ask the engines — never a guessed number
Free · 60 seconds · Never fabricated