Why I Built My Own AI Website Visibility Checker

Everybody wants AI to be talking about their business these days and that’s understandable. AI answers have changed the way we search and behave online, it’s not a fad, it’s not going anywhere. It’s only going to grow.

So it’s only natural that, as website owners, we all want ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, Claude et al to be mentioning our businesses, quoting our content, recommending our businesses and  – ideally – linking people back to our websites.

That’s becoming another important source of online visibility alongside traditional Google search. And its potential is unlimited…

But there’s a snag.

Before an AI system can confidently understand, reference or cite information from your website, it first needs to be able to access it and make sense of it.

And that’s what got me thinking about building my own AI website checker.

I Wanted to Know Whether My Clients’ Websites Were Actually AI-Friendly

As an SEO consultant, I work on client websites every day, so naturally I need to know whether those sites were properly set up to show in AI-generated search results. Now, as you’ve probably seen, there are already plenty of tools out there promising to measure AI visibility, AI readiness and whether a website is optimised for generative search.

I tried quite a few of them. The problem was that I wasn’t always getting particularly consistent or useful answers from any of them.

Some tools concentrate on whether a brand is already being mentioned in AI answers. Others perform broader technical audits covering things such as crawler access, structured data and site structure.

What I really wanted was something much simpler:

Is this website technically making life easy or difficult for AI systems?

Eventually I reached the perfectly sensible conclusion that it might be easier to build the thing myself. So I did.

What My AI Website Checker Actually Tests

What I didn’t want to do was create another mysterious score that tells you your website is “67% AI optimised” without explaining what that actually means.

Many of the companies who hire me do so for one simple reason. They have a business to run and they don’t have the time, or skillset, or both to do it themselves. Most don’t really understand the finer points of ranking higher or getting more eyes on their websites, nor do they have any inclination to learn about them.

So, while my checker needed to test some really technical signals – that can massively affect how easily automated AI systems can access, interpret and navigate your website – the resulting report had to be in plain, simple English.

So I developed a really simple scoring system that clearly explains what appears to be working and what may need attention.

The important distinction is this:

Passing the test doesn’t guarantee that ChatGPT is suddenly going to start recommending your business.

AI visibility depends on far more than technical setup.

Your content still needs to be useful. Your business needs some authority. Search engines and AI systems need enough information about you to understand what you do, who you help and why you might deserve to be referenced.

But if your website is unnecessarily difficult for AI crawlers or agents to access and understand, you’re hardly giving yourself the best chance.

Technical readiness is the foundation, not the finished building.

Why AI Visibility Matters

Search behaviour is changing. People are increasingly asking AI tools questions they would previously have typed into Google. And if they are using Google, chances are that it’s Gemini AI system will be right at the top of the page, above the ads and above the ‘traditional’ organic listings

And many internet users are lapping it up, asking for recommendations, comparisons, explanations, suppliers and solutions.

Frequently, those answers include businesses, brands, quotations and links.

That means there’s now another question website owners need to ask alongside:

“Can people find me on Google?”

It’s:

“Can AI systems find, understand and confidently reference my website?”

That’s the part I wanted my AI website checker to help with. Because the real question should be; “Is my website visible to AI?”

And believe me, if you own a website, you really, really need to make sure it is.

So I’m Making the Checker Available Free

The tool itself started as something I wanted for my own work.

But once I’d built it, started using it and tidied things up a bit, there didn’t seem much point in keeping it hidden away.

So it’s now available for anyone to use.

• You don’t need to create an account.
• You don’t need to give me your email address.
• You don’t need to download a 47-page automated audit explaining that civilisation will collapse unless you immediately book a sales call.

Just enter your website address and run the test.

Run My Free AI Website Checker →

It normally takes around 30 seconds and will give you a clearer idea of whether your website has some of the technical foundations needed for better AI visibility. In language you can actually understand, with recommendations that you can actually implement.

What If Your Website Doesn’t Pass?

Don’t panic.

Most of the problems the checker identifies are technical issues rather than evidence that your website is doomed to spend eternity ignored by robots.

More importantly, you’ll know exactly what needs looking at. And that’s really why I built the tool in the first place.

I’d rather have a handful of understandable checks that point me towards genuine problems than another impressive-looking dashboard containing 93 metrics nobody knows what to do with.