#ai-visibility
14 posts tagged with ai-visibility.
What are the best AI visibility tools, and what do their numbers actually tell you?
Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Profound, Peec AI, Otterly, Scrunch and the free options compared: what each measures, how it collects answers, listed prices and who it suits. Plus why AI answers change on every run, how to check your brand by hand, and what a visibility score can and can't tell you.
What is generative engine optimization? Where the term came from and what the evidence says works
Generative engine optimization (GEO) means getting your business mentioned and cited in AI answers. Where the term comes from, how ChatGPT, Google, Perplexity and Claude pick sources, how GEO differs from SEO and AEO, which tactics hold up in tests, how to measure it, what agencies and tools cost, and a plan for a small business.
AI Crawler Access Control: The Complete Guide (2026)
Replaced in November 2026: this answer now sits in a longer, current page on the same question. Linked here.
Should You Block or Allow AI Crawlers? A Decision Rule and the robots.txt to Ship
Decide AI crawler access by bot type: training is your call, search bots cite you, user-fetch bots are visitors. A rule by business type, the robots.txt template, Cloudflare settings and a curl check.
What You Lose by Blocking AI Search Bots
Replaced in November 2026: this answer now sits in a longer, current page on the same question. Linked here.
ChatGPT 'Shopping' Is Mostly Google Shopping — What That Means for Your Store
Replaced in November 2026: this answer now sits in a longer, current page on the same question. Linked here.
Does Blocking AI Bots Hurt Your SEO or AI Visibility?
Blocking AI training bots in robots.txt doesn't hurt Google SEO, and Google-Extended doesn't touch AI Overviews. Blocking AI search bots, or a plain Cloudflare block that reaches Googlebot, does cost visibility.
llms.txt: The Complete Guide (2026)
What llms.txt is, how to create one, how it differs from robots.txt and sitemap.xml, where it measurably helps (docs read by coding agents) and where it doesn't (AI search), and a rule for deciding by site type.
llms.txt for SEO and GEO: Does It Help You Rank or Get Cited?
Replaced in November 2026: this answer now sits in a longer, current page on the same question. Linked here.
Why robots.txt Won't Block AI Bots (and What Actually Does)
Do AI crawlers respect robots.txt? The compliant ones do, user-triggered fetchers often don't, and scrapers ignore it. robots.txt asks; a WAF enforces. Here's the split, bot by bot.
Should I Allow AI Crawlers?
Replaced in November 2026: this answer now sits in a longer, current page on the same question. Linked here.
Which AI Bots Should You Block? (And Why robots.txt Won't Stop Them)
Replaced in November 2026: this answer now sits in a longer, current page on the same question. Linked here.
The New SEO Playbook for AI Search: 8 Practices, Backed by 1 Billion Data Points
Replaced in November 2026: these Ahrefs findings, corrected, are now part of our guide to generative engine optimization. Linked here.
E-E-A-T in 2026: From Ranking Signal to AI Citation Gate (and Which Numbers Are Real)
Replaced in November 2026: what holds up from this piece is now in our guide to generative engine optimization and our page on which AI-search statistics to trust.