# GEO checker

_Source: https://seomatrix.ai/tools/geo-check/_

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## What it does

A GEO check evaluates whether a specific page is built for AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews — to quote it as a source. These engines don't cite whole sites; they lift self-contained passages that carry a clear answer, verifiable facts and machine-readable markup, so a page that ranks well in classic search can still be invisible to AI. Scoring those signals shows exactly why a URL does or doesn't get pulled into generated answers.

## What it checks

- **Self-contained opener** — The first paragraph that answers the page's core question without relying on earlier context; AI engines lift standalone passages, so a lede that only makes sense mid-article rarely gets quoted.
- **Question-phrased headings** — H2/H3 subheads written as the questions users actually ask; they map directly to the prompts engines answer, turning each section into an extractable, quotable unit.
- **Citable statistics** — Specific figures, dates and named sources embedded in the text; concrete, attributable claims are quoted far more often than vague generalizations.
- **Structured data (JSON-LD)** — Schema markup that labels the author, publish date and content type, letting engines parse who made a claim and how fresh it is before trusting it.
- **AI-crawler access** — Whether robots.txt allows the crawlers AI answers actually use — OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, PerplexityBot for Perplexity and Googlebot for AI Overviews; GPTBot and Google-Extended only govern model training, not answer citation, so blocking a citation crawler shuts the page out of that engine's answers.
- **Freshness signal** — A visible last-updated date on the page; engines favor recent sources for time-sensitive queries, so an undated or stale page loses citations to newer rivals.

## How to use it

1. Paste your URL into the checker and run the scan to score all 11 citation signals.
2. Review the flagged signals, starting with the highest-impact fixes at the top of the list.
3. Fix the weakest signals — rewrite the opener, add sources, or open robots.txt to AI crawlers — then re-run to confirm.

## FAQ

### Why does my page rank on Google but never get cited by AI?

Classic ranking rewards whole-page relevance, while AI engines quote self-contained passages with clear answers and verifiable facts. A page can rank well yet lack the answer-first structure, citable data or crawler access that generative engines require.

### Do I need to be in the top position to get cited by ChatGPT or Perplexity?

No — AI answer engines pull sources from across the results, not just the top spot. A well-structured page ranking on page two can be cited over a poorly structured page-one result.

### Does blocking AI crawlers hurt my citations?

Yes — but check the right crawler. For ChatGPT search citations that's OAI-SearchBot (GPTBot is only the training crawler); for Perplexity it's PerplexityBot; and Google AI Overviews rely on the standard Googlebot index, not Google-Extended (which only governs Gemini/Vertex use). If robots.txt blocks the crawler an engine actually uses to fetch answer sources, that engine can't cite you — so confirm access before anything else.

### What is the single highest-impact GEO fix?

For most pages it's the opening paragraph: rewriting the lede into a direct, self-contained answer to the page's core question gives engines a clean passage to quote. The checker ranks fixes by impact so you can start there.