Is your website ready for AI search? A free 17-point readiness check

An AI readiness check tests whether your website works for the two kinds of visitor it now has: people, and the AI assistants searching on their behalf. Can a search engine or ChatGPT read it and quote it? And can the customer it sends find an answer, a price and a way to book, even at 11pm when you're closed? Our free AI readiness check runs 17 published checks on up to 8 of your public pages and prints a score out of 100 in about 30 seconds, with no account.

Key takeaways

• Being "ready for AI" is mostly the basics done well: readable pages, plain facts, structured data, speed on phones, and a way to book or ask.
• Google says there are no extra technical requirements for its AI Overviews and AI Mode. Special files such as llms.txt aren't needed.
• Block AI training bots if you like, but never the search bots. OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot won't appear in ChatGPT search answers.
• Most AI readiness graders stop at "can a crawler read this page?" Ours also asks whether the customer who arrives can get what they came for.
• Every check and its points are published, and anything we couldn't check is left out of your score, not counted as zero.

What is an AI readiness check?

It's a quick, automated look at your website from the point of view of AI search and the customers it sends. The questions are simple:

1. Can AI search find and read you? Are the search crawlers let in, is the text in the page itself, and are your business details marked up so machines don't have to guess?
2. Can it quote you? Are your hours, prices and answers to common questions written in plain words, where an AI answer can lift them?
3. Can the customer act? When someone lands on your site from an AI answer, can they call with one tap, send a question, see a price and book?

The third question is where most tools stop short, and it's where a small business loses money. An AI assistant can recommend you perfectly, and the customer can still leave because your site doesn't say whether you're open.

AEO, GEO and SEO: what do they mean for a small business?

Three overlapping names for the same goal: being the business that gets found and chosen.

• SEO (search engine optimisation) helps your pages rank in ordinary search results.
• AEO (answer engine optimisation) makes your pages easy to quote as a direct answer: in Google's featured snippets and AI Overviews, and by voice assistants. Clear questions with short answers, structured data and plain facts do most of the work. That's what our answer engine optimisation service covers.
• GEO (generative engine optimisation) makes your business the one AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot name when someone asks for a recommendation. That depends on your website and on what the rest of the web says about you. Our guide on how to rank in ChatGPT and Google's AI answers goes into the evidence, and generative engine optimisation is the service.

All three rest on the same foundations, and those foundations are what an AI readiness check tests.

Why does it matter now?

Because more of your customers ask an AI before they ask you. When someone types "plumber near me open now" into Google, the first thing they may see is an AI Overview. When they ask ChatGPT for "a good accountant for a small café", it searches the web and names a few. Some assistants now go further and book or enquire for the person.

The good news is that you don't need tricks. Google's own guidance is that, to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a snippet. There are no additional technical requirements. ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity need their search crawlers let in and text they can read. After that, it's about whether your pages state the facts people ask for.

What does the free AI readiness check look at?

Seventeen checks in three sections, worth 100 points in total. The points reflect what costs a small business customers, not what's easiest to measure.

The speed line uses Google's own threshold: web.dev describes a Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less as good, and over 4 seconds as poor. We ask Google's free PageSpeed tool to time your home page on a phone, using real visitors' figures when Google has them.

Here is what the result looks like for a made-up plumber with a decent website:

TAMKOZ

AI READINESS CHECK

JOES-PLUMBING.EXAMPLE

SAMPLE · FOR ILLUSTRATION

• READ01 /
• READ02 /services
• READ03 /contact
• READ04 /about
• READ05 /emergency
• READ06 /areas
• READ07 /reviews

ANSWERS YOUR CUSTOMERS18/40

• ✓ Phone number you can tap6/6

• ✓ Email or contact form6/6

  CONTACT FORM

• MISSING: Opening hours0/7

  → WEBSITES

• MISSING: Prices or “from” prices0/7

  → WEBSITES

• MISSING: Chat or WhatsApp after hours0/8

  → CHATBOTS

• ✓ Answers to common questions6/6

TAKES THE BOOKING10/25

• MISSING: Online booking0/15

  IF YOU TAKE APPOINTMENTS · → CHATBOTS

• ✓ Quote or enquiry form10/10

GETS YOU FOUND30/35

• ✓ Fast on phones10/10

  2.1 S, REAL VISITORS

• ✓ Layout made for phones4/4

• ✓ Text AI search can read3/3

• ✓ AI search engines let in3/3

• ✓ Business details for Google6/6

  PLUMBER

• MISSING: Hours in your business details0/3

  → SEO

• ✓ Page title and description3/3

• ✓ Secure connection (HTTPS)1/1

• STALE: Looks up to date0/2

  © 2019 IN THE FOOTER · → WEBSITES

TOTAL58/100

FIXES DUE6

CHECKED 7 PUBLIC PAGES
FREE AUTOMATED CHECK · NOT AN AUDIT

Joe's site does well on being found: it's fast, readable, marked up and lets the search crawlers in. It still loses the 11pm customer, because it doesn't say when it's open, doesn't show a single price and has no way to book. Those three gaps cost it 29 points, almost exactly what all of its technical work earned (30), which is the point of the check.

How is the score worked out?

• Each line earns its points, half its points ("HALF") or nothing.
• A check we couldn't make prints "?" and is left out. If Google couldn't time your page, or your site builds its pages with JavaScript so we can't see a booking button, those points come off what's assessed rather than counting against you. Your score is points earned divided by points assessed.
• If fewer than 40 points could be assessed, you get no score at all, because a number built on so little would mislead you.
• The stamp beside the total reads READY at 85 or more, NEARLY READY from 60, HALF READY from 35, and NOT READY below that.

What we deliberately don't score

Being honest about the limits is part of the tool.

• No points for llms.txt. It's a proposed file that summarises a site for AI models. Google's guidance says no special files are needed for its AI features, and we've seen no good evidence it changes who gets cited. Adding one does no harm; it just won't move your score.
• No penalty for blocking AI training bots. Whether your pages help train AI models is your choice. Blocking GPTBot or ClaudeBot doesn't stop you appearing in ChatGPT or Claude answers, so it costs nothing here. Blocking OAI-SearchBot or Claude-SearchBot does, and that line will tell you.
• No accessibility verdict. A real accessibility audit needs a person and a lot more than 8 pages. We'd rather say nothing than overclaim.
• No rankings or backlinks. Those need paid data, and they're a job for a full audit.
• No "what ChatGPT says about you". That needs AI queries over time, and it's a different question from whether your website is ready.

That's also why your score may differ from other AI readiness graders. Many give points for llms.txt or penalise any AI bot block, and few look at whether a customer can book.

How to fix the most common gaps yourself

In order of points per hour of effort, for most small businesses:

1. Write your opening hours in plain text on your contact page and in the footer: "Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm". It's the question people and AI assistants ask most.
2. Add "from" prices for your main services, even if every job is quoted. "From $80" starts more conversations than "prices on request".
3. Make your phone number tappable. Most website builders call it a phone link or click-to-call.
4. Write an FAQ with the ten questions you answer every week, two or three sentences each. It's the easiest thing for an answer engine to quote.
5. Add online booking if you take appointments. Most booking tools have a free plan and a button you paste into your site.
6. Put your hours in your structured data, and keep them the same as your Google Business Profile. Most SEO plugins do this from a form.
7. Check robots.txt. Let the search crawlers in; block training bots only if you want to. A file that does exactly that looks like this:

# Search and AI search crawlers are allowed by default.
# Optional: keep your pages out of AI training.
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

1. Update the © year in the footer, or have the site print the current year itself. A footer saying 2019 makes people wonder whether you're still trading.

If you ask for it, the fix list we email you after a check has the why and the how for every line you missed, in the same plain words.

AI readiness check vs a full website audit

Start with the free check. If it finds more than a few gaps, or you want to know how you compare with the competitors an AI names instead of you, that's when a person should look.

What we would do

1. Run the free AI readiness check on your site and note every line marked MISSING, HALF or ?.
2. Fix the free ones this week: hours, "from" prices, tap-to-call, the footer year, robots.txt.
3. Write the FAQ from the questions you really get, and add booking if you take appointments.
4. Run it again and compare the totals.
5. Then see your site through a customer's eyes. Our free website chatbot demo builds a chatbot from your pages in about a minute. Every question it can't answer is a fact your website doesn't state yet, and a fact AI search can't quote.

If you'd rather we did it, the receipt links each missing line to the service that fixes it: websites for the pages themselves, SEO for structured data and titles, and AEO and GEO for being quoted and recommended.