Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about Generative Engine Optimization, AI-readiness audits, brand monitoring, and how Knownwise helps your content get discovered and cited across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity.
About GEO & AI visibility
The concepts behind Generative Engine Optimization and how AI engines surface your brand.
What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of optimizing your website and brand presence so that AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity can discover, understand, and recommend your content. Unlike traditional SEO which targets Google's link-based algorithm, GEO focuses on how large language models parse, cite, and surface your information in conversational answers.
How is GEO different from SEO?
Traditional SEO optimizes for Google's search result pages — titles, backlinks, and keyword density. GEO optimizes for AI-generated answers — semantic HTML clarity, structured data, content extractability, llms.txt files, and AI crawler access. While SEO drives clicks from search results, GEO ensures your brand is mentioned and cited accurately inside AI chat responses.
Is the AI readiness audit really free?
Yes, completely free. No credit card, no signup required. Enter any URL and receive a comprehensive 0-100 AI-readiness score across 7 categories with actionable recommendations in under 60 seconds.
Which AI engines do you monitor?
We monitor the four major AI-powered search engines: OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, Google Gemini, and Perplexity AI. Our brand monitoring tracks how often and how positively your brand appears in answers from each provider.
How often should I run an AI audit?
We recommend running an AI audit whenever you make significant changes to your website — content updates, technical migrations, or new product launches. For ongoing visibility tracking, weekly or daily brand monitoring across AI engines provides the most actionable insights.
What does the AI readiness score measure?
The AI readiness score measures 7 critical factors: llms.txt presence, semantic HTML quality, content extractability, metadata completeness, structured data (JSON-LD and microdata), accessibility standards, and AI crawler configuration in robots.txt. Each category is scored 0-100 and weighted into a composite score.
Plans & using the platform
Pricing, billing, and how the audit and brand-monitoring features work.
Can I try before I buy?
Yes. The Free plan includes 3 AI-readiness audits per month at no cost, with no credit card required.
What is brand monitoring?
Brand monitoring checks how often your brand is mentioned by AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. It tracks mentions, positioning, sentiment, and visibility over time.
Can I change plans later?
Absolutely. You can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time. Changes take effect at the start of your next billing cycle.
What payment methods do you accept?
We accept all major credit cards via Stripe. Payments are processed securely.
Technical & AI-readiness
llms.txt, AI crawlers, audit mechanics, and the technical signals engines read.
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so answer engines — AI assistants and featured-answer surfaces — can extract a direct, accurate answer to a user's question. AEO overlaps heavily with GEO: clear headings, question-and-answer formatting, FAQ schema, and concise, factual statements all make your content easier for an engine to quote verbatim.
What is an llms.txt file and do I need one?
llms.txt is a plain-text file placed at the root of your domain (like robots.txt) that gives AI models a concise, curated map of your most important pages and what they contain. It helps large language models find and prioritize your best content. Our free llms.txt generator creates one for any site in seconds.
Which AI crawlers should I allow in robots.txt?
To be visible in AI answers, allow the major AI crawlers: GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot and anthropic-ai (Anthropic), PerplexityBot (Perplexity), Google-Extended (Gemini/Google AI), and CCBot (Common Crawl, which trains many models). Blocking these removes your site from the data those engines rely on.
How long does an audit take?
An AI-readiness audit completes in under 60 seconds. We scrape your page, analyze seven readiness categories, and return a 0-100 score with prioritized, actionable recommendations — no signup required.
Will optimizing for AI hurt my traditional SEO?
No. The fundamentals of GEO — semantic HTML, complete metadata, structured data, fast and accessible pages — are the same signals that strengthen traditional SEO. Optimizing for AI engines improves both surfaces at once.
Glossary
Key terms used across GEO, AEO, and AI brand visibility.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
- Optimizing content and structure so generative AI engines can discover, understand, and recommend a brand in their answers.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
- Structuring content so answer engines can extract a direct, accurate answer to a question — closely related to GEO.
- llms.txt
- A root-level plain-text file that gives AI models a curated map of a site's key pages and their purpose, similar in spirit to robots.txt.
- Structured data (JSON-LD)
- Machine-readable schema.org markup that describes a page's meaning (organization, product, FAQ, article) so engines can parse it unambiguously.
- Semantic HTML
- Using meaningful elements (header, nav, main, article, section, footer) so crawlers and models understand the role of each part of a page.
- AI crawler
- An automated bot (e.g. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended) that reads web pages to power or train AI answer engines.
- Brand visibility
- How often and how prominently a brand is mentioned in AI-generated answers across engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity.
Want the deep dive? Read the complete GEO guide or compare GEO vs SEO.
Still have questions?
The fastest way to understand your AI visibility is to measure it. Run a free audit or generate an llms.txt in under a minute.