FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What to know before running your first scan. Still stuck? Get in touch.

What is Robot Visible?

Robot Visible is an answer engine optimisation (AEO) system. It asks real buyer questions of live AI answer engines and records what came back, shows which brands and source pages won each answer, ranks the next change to make, and re-checks the answer afterwards. It also evaluates whether robots.txt permits named search and AI bots to fetch an exact public URL and inspects the initial HTML it receives without executing JavaScript, which is the readiness half of the picture. Readiness and observed answers are reported separately and never conflated.

Who is Robot Visible for?

Anyone who needs to know why an AI assistant recommends someone else and what to do about it, without hiring a consultant or building an AEO function. It is self-serve, priced to start free, and every change it proposes stays reviewable. If you have a live URL but few AI mentions, the free scan shows your readiness, one real answer, and the next move.

How is this different from a normal SEO audit?

Traditional SEO tools often focus on keywords, backlinks, and technical SEO. Robot Visible focuses on crawler policy, the initial HTML its scanner receives, structured data, supporting pages, clear answers, and classic search basics. Its AI interpretation is a grounded simulation; it does not claim to reproduce a provider's crawl.

Do I need to install anything or add a tag to my site?

No. You paste your public URL and run a scan. Robot Visible fetches your public URL like a standard HTTP client and does not execute JavaScript, so it only reads what is already publicly available. There is no script to embed, no DNS change, and no access to your codebase required.

Is the scan really free?

Yes. An anonymous scan gives you a six-category readiness score and three priority fixes. A free account adds one monitored page, three tracked questions, three scans a month, one fix plan, and one live AI answer check each month. Paid plans add more capacity, weekly monitoring, competitor tracking, and implementation guidance.

How long does a scan take?

A free scan usually completes in under a minute. Paste a public URL and Robot Visible will return your score and the most important issues to fix.

What does Robot Visible actually check?

It checks the page response Robot Visible receives, exact-URL robots.txt policy for named bots, search titles and descriptions, initial-HTML content, supporting pages, structured data, and trust signals. It does not execute JavaScript or claim that a provider received the same response.

What is AEO, and is it different from AI visibility?

AEO is answer engine optimisation: the practice of becoming the answer an AI assistant gives when a buyer asks for a recommendation. AI visibility is the outcome that practice is measured by, and AI search is the channel it happens in. GEO, LLMO, and AI SEO are commonly used synonyms for the same practice. A tool can report your AI visibility without doing any AEO, which is the distinction worth checking when comparing vendors.

How do you decide which companies are my competitors?

Suggested competitors are inferred from the public AI answer and the pages it cited, and they are labelled as suggestions rather than findings. A company is only suggested when it is named in the answer itself, so a publisher or directory that was merely cited is not proposed as a business rival. Suggestions can be incomplete or wrong, and they establish no relationship between you and the company named. Inside your workspace you choose which competitors are actually tracked; a suggested set from a free scan is not carried across for you.

Why did the same question give a different answer this week?

AI answers vary by provider, API surface, time, location, personalisation, and model version. Two checks of the same question can legitimately differ without anything changing on your site. That is why a single answer is treated as a sample rather than a trend, why a before-and-after comparison states the interval between the two checks, and why a provider that was not checked is recorded as not checked rather than as a negative result.

Does Robot Visible publish changes to my site on its own?

No. GitHub changes are opened as draft pull requests and Shopify updates require explicit selection and approval. Nothing is merged or published for you, and you remain responsible for the factual, legal, regulatory, and brand review of anything that goes live.

Will fixing these issues guarantee more traffic or AI citations?

No tool can guarantee rankings, citations, recommendations, or traffic. Robot Visible surfaces concrete, fixable gaps that commonly hold websites back from being discovered, cited, and recommended, and prioritises them by impact. Acting on them improves your odds, but results depend on your market, content, and competition.