# AuditAE

> Pay-per-use AI visibility platform. AuditAE measures whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews cite your brand for the prompts your buyers actually ask — and bundles Google rank tracking (with AI Overview citation status per keyword), brand-mention monitoring across both AI answers and the open web (with sentiment), technical SEO audits, platform/CMS detection, backlink authority, and an in-product analyst chat (AEBOT) on top of the same workspace. It works on any website: fix plans are written for the platform the site runs on (WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, Framer, or code such as Next.js and Astro), and on WordPress a free plugin can apply them directly.

AuditAE is a SaaS tool for SEO teams, marketers, and agencies tracking AI search visibility. Each citation audit runs your prompts against four AI engines in parallel — ChatGPT (OpenAI Responses API), Perplexity (Sonar), Google Gemini (googleSearch grounding), and Google's AI Overviews via SerpAPI — and reports whether your brand was mentioned, cited as a source, or quietly skipped, plus the share-of-voice gap against your tracked competitors.

Pricing: pay-per-use. $5 free credit on signup, no card required. Per-keyword rank checks and per-saved-report fees use the same per-action pricing — no subscription, top-ups never expire. New accounts' first audit runs automatically on the signup credit (its checks plus its fix plan); a free re-check follows 14 days later.

## Product

- [Landing page](https://auditae.app/): Hero, problem framing, the six per-cell signals captured in every audit, pricing comparison vs. Otterly / Profound / Semrush AI / SE Ranking, use cases, FAQ.
- [How it works](https://auditae.app/how-it-works): The flow (add a site → run across four engines → read the gap), what each engine sees, what every check stores, and the three access paths (dashboard / REST API / MCP server).
- [Pricing](https://auditae.app/pricing): Full rate card (citation checks priced by engine: Perplexity $0.05, ChatGPT $0.07, Google AI Overviews $0.09, Gemini $0.12, opt-in Google AI Mode $0.10; $0.05 rank check; free homepage CWV audit in the app), real-cost scenarios, comparison vs. Otterly/Profound subscriptions, what's included free, and pricing FAQ.
- [Integrations](https://auditae.app/integrations): The four AI engines behind every audit, the Google connection (GA4 / Search Console / Gmail / Drive scopes and what each unlocks), WordPress plugin capabilities, and built-in data providers.
- [Free AI visibility checker](https://auditae.app/ai-brand-monitor): Free, no-signup check that runs one buyer prompt on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews and shows who was cited and which competitors were named.
- [All AI engines](https://auditae.app/ai-engines): The "track brand citations across every AI engine" landing — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews all checked in parallel on every audit, none gated or upsold.
- [AI marketing analyst (AEBOT)](https://auditae.app/ai-marketing-analyst): AEBOT pulls GA4, Search Console, keyword ranks, AI citations, and technical audits into one chat — and writes the monthly client report (billed per reply on tokens; measured report replies come to about $2–3, including 25¢ to save it).
- [AI SEO agent](https://auditae.app/ai-seo-agent): An SEO agent that works from real data (Search Console, GA4, weekly keyword ranks, AI citation checks, a site crawl), turns findings into ranked fixes, applies them on WordPress through the free plugin (posts, SEO meta, schema, internal links, redirects, alt text) and writes the monthly report; runs as AEBOT in the dashboard or in Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor over MCP; confirms before destructive or priced steps; pay per use.
- [Free JSON-LD schema generator](https://auditae.app/schema-generator): Build validator-checked schema.org JSON-LD for Article, HowTo, FAQPage, Product, Organization, and more — free, no signup, copy-paste ready.
- [Free AI Search Audit (GEO / AEO checker)](https://auditae.app/ai-search-audit): Scores any site 0–100 on whether AI answer engines can fetch, read and trust it — citation bots in robots.txt, llms.txt, Organization/Article/FAQ schema, snippet rules, server-rendered text, answer-first structure, freshness. Free, no login, five pages per run; the full report with every fix is emailed.
- [Free AI crawler checker](https://auditae.app/ai-crawler-checker): Checks whether robots.txt, meta robots / X-Robots-Tag or a firewall blocks 22 AI and search crawlers (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and more). Each bot gets a verdict quoted from the deciding robots.txt line; the 14 AI and search bots that feed AI answers are counted separately from training bots (a policy choice, not an error). Includes a labelled firewall probe as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, ChatGPT-User, a single-path test and three paste-ready robots.txt fixes. The first check is free without an account; re-checks need a free account.
- [Free llms.txt generator and validator](https://auditae.app/llms-txt-generator): Generates an llms.txt draft from a site's own sitemap, page titles and meta descriptions (no AI rewriting), or validates a live /llms.txt line by line against the llmstxt.org format, how it's served, and whether its links resolve, with a repaired version. A paste mode validates in the browser. Free, no signup. It makes no claim that llms.txt earns AI citations and links the evidence on both sides.
- [Free FAQ schema generator](https://auditae.app/faq-schema-generator): Single-purpose FAQPage JSON-LD generator — paste question-and-answer pairs, get validator-checked structured data. Includes the 2026 context (Google retired FAQ rich results on May 7, 2026; the markup still matters for answer engines), the four rules that keep FAQPage valid, and FAQPage vs QAPage.
- [AI search playbook](https://auditae.app/ai-search): The deeper AEO playbook — four ranking levers (answer-first paragraphs, question-shaped H2/H3s + FAQ schema, named expert quotes, freshness), AEO vs. SEO take, FAQ.
- [Methodology](https://auditae.app/methodology): How AuditAE queries each of the four engines, what counts as a citation vs. a mention, what "position" means, and what we deliberately don't claim to measure.
- [Sample audit — Yoast](https://auditae.app/r/f11b21177eed78b8): Public share of a real audit. Yoast was mentioned in 19 of 20 AI answers but URL-cited as a source in only 9 of 20 — concrete demo of the share-of-voice gap that AuditAE measures.

## Docs

Step-by-step guides for people and agents. Add `.md` to any docs URL (or send `Accept: text/markdown`) for plain Markdown.

- [Apply a fix plan and check it worked](https://auditae.app/docs/fix-plan): Turn an audit into exact edits, apply them on WordPress or any other site, ping the crawlers, and re-check whether AI engines now cite you. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/fix-plan.md
- [Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, VS Code or Cursor to AuditAE (MCP)](https://auditae.app/docs/mcp): Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, VS Code or Cursor to AuditAE's MCP server: sign in or use an API key. No-account agents use /api/mcp/pay. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/mcp.md
- [What AEBOT can do at each WordPress permission level](https://auditae.app/docs/wordpress-permissions): The four AuditAE plugin permissions (read, draft, publish, Write SEO settings): what AEBOT and MCP agents can and can't change at each level. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/wordpress-permissions.md
- [Pair the AuditAE WordPress plugin](https://auditae.app/docs/wordpress-pairing): Install the free AuditAE plugin, pair it with an 8-character code, and choose what AEBOT may change. Plus fixes for pairing errors and llms.txt 404s. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/wordpress-pairing.md
- [Credits, prices and top-ups](https://auditae.app/docs/credits): What each AuditAE action costs, how to top up (in the app, in AEBOT chat or from an agent), how auto-refill works, and what happens when credit runs out. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/credits.md
- [Getting started](https://auditae.app/docs/getting-started): What AuditAE does, what you get when you sign up (free credit, a first audit, a free re-check) and the recommended path for a new account. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/getting-started.md
- [Add a site and run an audit](https://auditae.app/docs/run-an-audit): Add the brand you want to track, run an AI citation audit across every engine, schedule re-runs, and write buyer prompts that produce useful answers. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/run-an-audit.md
- [Read audit results](https://auditae.app/docs/read-results): What the AI Visibility Score, mention rate and URL citation rate mean, how to read the per-prompt grid, and where the fixes for each gap are. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/read-results.md
- [Site Audit: crawl a site and read Site Health](https://auditae.app/docs/site-audit): Crawl up to 10,000 pages for 1¢ per 10 pages and get Site Health, 9 theme scores and 174 checks, each with why it matters and how to fix it. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/site-audit.md
- [Rank tracking, mentions and site signals](https://auditae.app/docs/tracking-and-mentions): Track Google rankings and AI Overview citations per keyword, monitor brand mentions in AI answers and on the open web, and check platform and authority. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/tracking-and-mentions.md
- [Connect Google Analytics, Search Console, Gmail and Drive](https://auditae.app/docs/google): One Google sign-in covers analytics, Search Console, Gmail and Drive. Then pick a GA4 property and a Search Console site for each site. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/google.md
- [Share a client portal](https://auditae.app/docs/client-portal): Give a client a free, read-only page for one site: traffic, Google search, conversions, AI visibility and your reports. No login for them. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/client-portal.md
- [Using AEBOT](https://auditae.app/docs/aebot): AEBOT is the AI assistant that runs your AuditAE workspace from chat: what it can do, what a reply costs (about $1–2), WordPress permissions and free docs mode. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/aebot.md
- [Memory: the marketing brief](https://auditae.app/docs/memory): The marketing brief AuditAE keeps for each site, shared by every chat and agent. Start it in five minutes; AEBOT reads it first and keeps it current. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/memory.md
- [REST API and API keys](https://auditae.app/docs/api): Run AuditAE from your own code with an API key and the same credit balance as the dashboard. Endpoints, prices, 402 top-ups and rate limits. Markdown: https://auditae.app/docs/api.md
- [All docs as one file](https://auditae.app/llms-full.txt): every docs page above, in full, as one Markdown text.
- [REST API (OpenAPI 3.1)](https://auditae.app/openapi.json): machine-readable spec for every /api/v1 endpoint, with auth and per-call prices.

## Per-engine tracker pages

- [ChatGPT brand monitoring tool](https://auditae.app/chatgpt-brand-monitoring): How AuditAE tracks ChatGPT — OpenAI Responses API with web_search, training-data recall plus live retrieval, why answer-body mentions matter as much as cited sources.
- [Track brand mentions in Perplexity](https://auditae.app/perplexity-brand-monitoring): Perplexity brand monitoring tool on the Sonar API — how to track brand mentions vs citations in Perplexity, with rates measured from AuditAE audits (median 19 sources per answer; when Perplexity names a brand it links that brand's site 79% of the time).
- [Track brand mentions in Gemini](https://auditae.app/gemini-brand-monitoring): Gemini brand monitoring tool — grounded retrieval against the Google index; how to track brand mentions vs citations in Gemini, with rates measured from AuditAE audits (median 9 grounded sources per answer).
- [AI Overviews tracker](https://auditae.app/ai-overviews-tracker): Google AI Overviews — captured via SerpAPI on every audit run. Includes a long-form explainer answering "how do AI Overviews work?", "how do I get cited in AI Overviews?", and "what's the best AI Overviews tracker?".

## Comparison pages

- [AuditAE alternatives and comparisons](https://auditae.app/alternatives): Hub listing every comparison page: AI visibility trackers (Otterly.ai, Peec AI alternatives, Profound alternatives and pricing, Profound vs Peec AI, Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Brand24) and SEO suites and crawlers (Semrush, Ahrefs, Semrush vs Moz, Screaming Frog).
- [Otterly.ai alternative](https://auditae.app/alternatives/otterly): Otterly.ai (Lite $29/mo for 15 prompts, Standard $189 for 100, Premium $489 for 400; ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot daily, Gemini and AI Mode as paid add-ons) vs AuditAE (5–12¢ per check, 33¢ per prompt on four engines, Gemini included, no Copilot). Break-even table: up to 5 runs a month of Otterly Lite's 15 prompts costs less on AuditAE; daily tracking is cheaper on Otterly.
- [Peec AI alternatives](https://auditae.app/alternatives/peec-ai): Peec AI's plans (Starter $95/month for 50 prompts, Pro $245/month for 150, Advanced $495/month for 350; daily on 3 models you choose from 6 defaults, Perplexity included; extra models a paid add-on), what it does well and who should pick it, then five alternatives with prices as listed in October 2026: AuditAE (5–12¢ per check, no subscription), Otterly.ai, Profound, Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit and SE Ranking. Weekly vs daily table: Starter's 50 prompts checked weekly on AuditAE's four engines cost about $71.50/month; checked daily, Peec is cheaper.
- [Profound alternatives and Profound pricing](https://auditae.app/alternatives/profound): How Profound prices in 2026 (brands: free 7-day trial with 50 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, then custom Enterprise with up to 9 engines; agencies: Agency Growth $99/month plus $399/month per client workspace of 100 daily prompts), who it fits, and five alternatives: AuditAE, Peec AI, Otterly.ai, Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit and SE Ranking. Per-client cost table: a workspace's prompts checked weekly on the same three engines cost about $91/month on AuditAE; checked daily, Profound is cheaper.
- [Brand24 alternative for AI search](https://auditae.app/alternatives/brand24): Honest comparison — Brand24 is social listening with an AI Visibility add-on (powered by Chatbeat); AuditAE is built around AI-answer citations and fixes, billed per check. Side-by-side feature table, embedded preview form, FAQs targeting "Is AuditAE better than Brand24?" and "Does Brand24 track ChatGPT mentions?".
- [Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit alternative](https://auditae.app/alternatives/semrush-ai-visibility): What Semrush AI Visibility actually covers (Brand Performance, Same Workspace integration) and what it misses (25-prompt cap, per-domain pricing, no Perplexity in Prompt Tracking). 12-row feature comparison.
- [Profound vs Peec AI and a pay-per-check alternative](https://auditae.app/alternatives/profound-vs-peec-ai): Profound (enterprise: free 7-day trial, then custom pricing; agencies $99/mo plus $399/mo per client workspace) vs Peec AI (mid-market, Starter $95/mo, 50 prompts on 3 models) vs AuditAE (5–12¢ per check, no subscription). Pricing table, when a subscription is cheaper, FAQs.
- [Semrush vs Moz for SEO audits](https://auditae.app/alternatives/semrush-vs-moz): Semrush ($139/mo) vs Moz Pro ($59/mo) on audit depth, research, backlinks and ease of use, plus the AI-citation check neither site audit covers.
- [Semrush pricing 2026 and rank-tracking cost](https://auditae.app/alternatives/semrush-pricing): Semrush SEO ($139/mo, 500 keywords) and the Semrush One tiers Starter ($199, 500 + 50 AI prompts), Pro+ ($299, 1,500) and Advanced ($549, 5,000) vs AuditAE rank tracking at 5¢ per check with weekly refreshes and no keyword cap; per-keyword cost table and when Semrush is the better buy.
- [Screaming Frog alternative](https://auditae.app/alternatives/screaming-frog): Screaming Frog SEO Spider ($279/year per user, bulk tiers from 5 licences, free up to 500 URLs; desktop app with JavaScript rendering, scheduling on your own machine and a local MCP server on paid licences) vs the AuditAE Site Audit (cloud crawl of up to 10,000 URLs at 1¢ per 10 pages, $1 per 1,000 URLs, scheduled weekly or monthly, hosted MCP; no JavaScript rendering). Cost and break-even tables, when to keep Screaming Frog, a dated crawl of auditae.app, and Sitebulb, Semrush, Ahrefs, LibreCrawl and SE Ranking with October 2026 prices; free options include AuditAE's free AI search audit.
- [Ahrefs pricing 2026 and rank-tracking cost](https://auditae.app/alternatives/ahrefs-pricing): Ahrefs Starter ($29), Lite ($129, 750 keywords), Standard ($249, 2,000) and Advanced ($449, 5,000), all updating weekly by default, vs AuditAE rank tracking at 5¢ per check with weekly refreshes and no keyword cap; per-keyword cost table and when Ahrefs is the better buy.

## WordPress plugin (free)

- [WordPress integration page](https://auditae.app/wordpress-ai-plugin): Marketing page for the free AuditAE plugin.
- [WordPress MCP server](https://auditae.app/wordpress-mcp): Hosted MCP endpoint (https://auditae.app/api/mcp) with 45 WordPress tools for posts, Yoast/Rank Math meta, schema, llms.txt, redirects, internal links, image alt text and the AI crawler log; setup for every client (Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, and VS Code sign in with OAuth; Cursor and Windsurf use an API key); reads free, writes 5¢.
- [SEO MCP server](https://auditae.app/seo-mcp): The hosted AuditAE MCP server (https://auditae.app/api/mcp) as an SEO MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, and VS Code, Cursor and other MCP clients: a site's own Search Console and GA4 data (20 free calls a day, then 1¢ each), keyword research and weekly rank tracking, technical audits, AI search citation checks, and WordPress edits through the plugin; pay per call, no subscription.
- [Google Search Console MCP](https://auditae.app/search-console-mcp): The same hosted MCP server's Search Console tools (query_search_console, find_search_opportunities, inspect_url; 20 free calls a day, then 1¢ each, shared with the GA4 tools) — clicks, impressions, CTR and position by query, page, country, device, date or search appearance, and URL Inspection for one page (index status, Google's canonical, rich results), over the Google connection made once in the dashboard, with no Google Cloud project; then fix plans, WordPress edits, IndexNow and AI citation checks on the same connection. No sitemap tools, batch inspection or Indexing API. Setup for every client (Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, and VS Code sign in with OAuth; Cursor and Windsurf use an API key), and a dated comparison with self-hosted servers and hosted connectors.
- [Google Analytics MCP](https://auditae.app/google-analytics-mcp): The same hosted MCP server's GA4 tools (query_google_analytics, get_ai_referral_traffic; 20 free calls a day, then 1¢ each, shared with the Search Console tools) — any GA4 report and AI-assistant referral traffic over the same Google connection, with no Google Cloud project; setup for every client (Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, and VS Code sign in with OAuth; Cursor and Windsurf use an API key).
- [Elementor MCP for AI search](https://auditae.app/elementor-mcp): The same hosted MCP server on Elementor sites — reads Elementor and Elementor Pro widget text, edits it in place with exact find-and-replace, adds FAQ schema and Yoast/Rank Math meta; works alongside Elementor's own MCP, which builds layouts.
- [Plugin on WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/plugins/auditae-ai-search-toolkit/): Install the free plugin (v0.38.0, listed as "AuditAE – MCP Server & AI SEO") from the WordPress.org directory — search "AuditAE" in Plugins → Add New, or install from this listing. Auto-updates. Works with Elementor (including Elementor Pro widgets) and the block editor: Elementor pages are scored and their text edited in place with find-and-replace edits; block-editor edits keep blocks (including Yoast / Rank Math FAQ blocks) valid.

The plugin works fully standalone with no AuditAE account required. Free features ship the moment it's activated: an AI Readiness Score (a 0–100 grade of how citable the site is, with a fix-it checklist showing the points each fix is worth, a 7-day delta recorded daily in the background that names the check behind every rise or drop, and an optional opt-in weekly/monthly score email), an AI crawler tracker (logs hits from ~30 AI bots such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot, Google-Extended and Applebot-Extended, including first-visit alerts when a new engine discovers the site) with a robots.txt audit and a one-click fix that appends explicit Allow rules for blocked AI citation engines, IndexNow auto-ping (submits new and updated posts to Bing's index, which feeds ChatGPT/Copilot retrieval, within a couple of minutes of publishing, in batches; paused on staging sites and while search engines are discouraged), a live `/llms.txt` generator at the site root, a JSON-LD schema graph (Article / Product / HowTo / BreadcrumbList plus site-wide Organization / WebSite, with @id deduplication against Yoast, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress, and The SEO Framework, and a saved Organization filled in only when nothing else on the site emits one), a free FAQ schema editor in the post editor (add question-and-answer pairs to any post or page and they publish as schema.org FAQPage JSON-LD, with a filtered list view of the posts still missing it), an orphaned-content report with internal-linking suggestions (a site-wide link graph finds every published post nothing links to, then finds pages that already mention it in plain prose and inserts the link with one click, wrapping one phrase exactly once, never touching attributes, block markup, or scripts; the reports Yoast Premium and Rank Math PRO charge for), a broken internal link checker (lists links in content pointing at own-site pages that no longer resolve, resolved conservatively against the database with zero external requests, run in short background slices so it finishes on any host, with links to drafts and private posts reported separately from true 404s; Rank Math charges for this in PRO), Query Fan-Out coverage in the post editor (models the parallel sub-queries AI engines split a search into, splits the draft at heading boundaries, and scores which passages answer which sub-queries, misses first; built entirely from on-site signals, nothing sent anywhere), a 404 redirect manager, and an image-filename rename action in the Media library (turns IMG_4821.jpg into a descriptive, keyword-bearing slug, renaming every size plus the pristine original and rewriting references in post content, srcsets, CSS backgrounds, block widgets, the header image and Elementor, then listing any post that still mentions the old file). Crawler hits live in one lightweight local table pruned to 90 days and capped at 200,000 rows; everything else is in `wp_options`. No telemetry: an unpaired site's only outbound call is the IndexNow ping (on by default, switchable off; the URLs that changed + your host + a generated key, no content), and a paired site also fetches its own AuditAE scorecard for the dashboard widget. Optional pairing with an AuditAE account unlocks AEBOT-driven post drafting, scheduled publishing, reversible trash, whole-page design/build (including adapting an uploaded HTML/zip design), SEO meta edits, bulk internal linking across the whole archive, in-place image compression (uploaded JPEG/PNG/WebP files and their sizes, originals backed up and restorable from the Media Library), and schema/llms.txt curation over a REST bearer token the site owner can revoke at any time; paired sites also see live AI-citation, GA4, and Search Console figures in the wp-admin dashboard widget.

## Blog

- [Blog index](https://auditae.app/blog): Pillar guides + cluster deep-dives.
- [Best AI SEO trackers and AI search analysis tools (2026)](https://auditae.app/blog/best-ai-search-monitoring-tools): Cluster — 8 AI SEO trackers compared (AuditAE, Otterly, Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Peec AI, Profound, SE Ranking, AthenaHQ, HubSpot AI Search Grader) on entry price, pricing model and Google AI Mode coverage, with picks by budget.
- [The 10 Best Tools to Track Mentions in ChatGPT (2026): Free and Paid](https://auditae.app/blog/best-tools-track-mentions-chatgpt): Cluster — 10 trackers compared (AuditAE, Otterly.ai, Peec AI, Profound, Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Ahrefs Brand Radar, AthenaHQ, Scrunch, LLMrefs and Rankscale) on starting price, engine coverage, refresh schedule and free options, with the catch on each, which sources AI answers cite for tracker questions, and a cadence-based how-to-choose.
- [What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?](https://auditae.app/blog/what-is-answer-engine-optimization): Pillar — what AEO is, how it differs from SEO, how to measure it, the AEO checklist.
- [What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?](https://auditae.app/blog/generative-engine-optimization): Pillar — what GEO is, GEO vs AEO vs SEO, how generative engines decide what to cite, why it matters now, how to measure it, and a starter GEO checklist. GEO and AEO are treated as synonyms.
- [SEO, GEO, and AEO in 2026: what 20+ studies show about AI citations](https://auditae.app/blog/seo-geo-aeo-research-2026): Cluster — research report built from 20+ primary studies: 68% zero-click, brand mentions predict AI visibility ~3× better than backlinks, only 38% of AI Overview citations come from top-10 pages; disagreements reported, not averaged.
- [AI search optimization](https://auditae.app/blog/ai-search-optimization): Pillar — how AI engines pick what to cite, the five layers that drive citation, what differs between ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews.
- [How to track brand mentions in AI search](https://auditae.app/blog/ai-brand-monitoring): Pillar (merged 2026-05-19, revised 2026-06-12) — the step-by-step tracking methodology, what counts as a brand mention vs. a citation, the five metrics that matter, per-engine workflows for ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini/AI Overviews, the best tools in 2026 (comparison table covering AuditAE, Profound, Semrush AI Visibility, Otterly, Brand24), and a 30-day setup plan.
- [How to improve brand visibility in AI search engines](https://auditae.app/blog/how-to-improve-brand-visibility-in-ai-search-engines): Cluster — the mentioned-vs-cited gap, a measure-first prompt grid across ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini/AI Overviews, then 8 fixes in payoff order (search bots allowed, Bing + IndexNow, answer-first structure, citable original data, third-party mentions, technical blockers, honest dates, llms.txt) with the WordPress plugin path for each.
- [What is llms.txt? Format, examples and a free generator](https://auditae.app/blog/what-is-llms-txt): Cluster — what llms.txt is, the file format with an example, llms.txt vs robots.txt vs sitemap.xml, the short verdict (no confirmed citation lift; publish it as cheap hygiene), how to add one, and the free generator.
- [The cheapest AI visibility tracker in 2026](https://auditae.app/blog/cheapest-ai-visibility-tracker): Cluster — entry prices for AuditAE, Otterly, Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Peec AI, Profound and HubSpot's free grader (checked September 2026), monthly pay-per-check math for 25 prompts at monthly/weekly/daily cadence, and where a subscription becomes cheaper (around weekly checks).
- [How to rank on ChatGPT](https://auditae.app/blog/how-to-rank-on-chatgpt): Cluster (absorbed /blog/how-to-show-up-in-chatgpt-results, 2026-10-01) — how to rank on ChatGPT and show up in its answers: the parametric-recall and SearchGPT-retrieval paths, 8 levers, a FAQPage schema example, why there's no submit button, the Bing + IndexNow workflow, and a 14-day sprint.
- [How to rank on Perplexity](https://auditae.app/blog/how-to-rank-on-perplexity): Cluster — the Perplexity-specific citation playbook (fastest engine to reflect new content).
- [How to rank on Gemini](https://auditae.app/blog/how-to-rank-on-gemini): Cluster — Gemini grounds answers in Google Search, making it the most SEO-native engine; the grounding pipeline, eight levers, and a 14-day sprint.
- [How to rank in AI Overviews](https://auditae.app/blog/how-to-rank-in-ai-overviews): Cluster — the AIO-specific playbook (E-E-A-T over retrieval, FAQ schema, freshness).
- [Why your #1 ranked page is invisible in AI search](https://auditae.app/blog/why-ranking-doesnt-mean-cited): Cluster — query fan-out, why the page→passage shift broke the old "rank #1 wins" assumption.
- [AI visibility vs. SEO](https://auditae.app/blog/ai-visibility-vs-seo): What carries over from SEO and what doesn't when the answer comes before the click.
- [What counts as a citation](https://auditae.app/blog/what-counts-as-a-citation): Three engines, three definitions of "cited." Methodology deep-dive.
- [The real cost of Semrush AI Visibility](https://auditae.app/blog/real-cost-of-semrush-ai-visibility-audit): The full pricing math — $99/mo is the floor, not the ceiling. Agency scenarios, Semrush One bundles, per-domain math.
- [AI visibility tool comparison: cheapest AIO prompt tracking software for 2026](https://auditae.app/blog/affordable-aio-prompt-tracking-software): Tool-by-tool comparison — AuditAE, Semrush, Profound, Otterly, Brand24, DIY.
- [AI brand visibility tools: the four categories that matter](https://auditae.app/blog/ai-brand-visibility-tools): Cluster — the four functional types (analysis, tracking, checking, optimization), where they overlap, and how to pick without overpaying for a bundle of three.
- [AI SEO tool pricing: pay-per-check vs $99/month subscriptions](https://auditae.app/blog/ai-seo-tool-pricing-pay-per-check-vs-subscription): Cluster — what each subscription tier ($29–$1,000+/mo, often per domain) delivers, where the hidden costs are, and when pay-per-check beats a monthly commitment.
- [Why use AI search optimization tools for your business](https://auditae.app/blog/why-use-ai-search-optimization-tools-for-your-business): Cluster — why the split between classic SERPs and AI answers matters, what these tools actually do, and the features that move the needle.
- [Monthly client report in ten minutes](https://auditae.app/blog/monthly-report-in-ten-minutes): Workflow post — using AEBOT to chain audit, GA4, Search Console, and rank data into a client-ready monthly report.
- [AuditAE MCP server: run AI citation audits inside Claude and Cursor](https://auditae.app/blog/auditae-mcp-server): Setup guide — what an MCP server is, the tools the AuditAE server exposes, connecting Claude.ai and ChatGPT (OAuth), Claude Code and Cursor (API key) and Claude Desktop (mcp-remote) to the hosted server, and what a real run returns.
- [The best SERP trackers in 2026, priced per keyword](https://auditae.app/blog/best-serp-trackers): Cluster — SE Ranking, SerpRobot, Wincher, AccuRanker, Ahrefs Rank Tracker, Nightwatch, AuditAE, Mangools SERPWatcher and Semrush compared on cost per keyword per month and update frequency (prices checked September 2026), plus free options (Search Console, SerpBear) and how to choose by keyword count.
- [The best MCP servers for SEO in 2026](https://auditae.app/blog/best-mcp-servers-for-seo): Cluster — seven MCP servers for SEO work in Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor (AuditAE, Google's official GA4 server, community Search Console servers, DataForSEO, Semrush, Ahrefs, WordPress), with setup and cost for each and how to use Claude for SEO with them.
- [How to connect Claude or ChatGPT to Google Analytics](https://auditae.app/blog/connect-claude-chatgpt-to-google-analytics): Standalone — walkthrough with screenshots: add the site, connect Google once and pick the GA4 property and Search Console site (read-only scopes, no Google Cloud project), then connect Claude.ai or ChatGPT (custom connector / developer mode, OAuth sign-in) or Claude Code and Cursor (ae_live_ API key); first prompts, AI-referral traffic from GA4, what the Google tools cost, self-hosted alternatives and troubleshooting.
- [How to connect Claude to WordPress](https://auditae.app/blog/connect-claude-to-wordpress): Cluster — step-by-step setup with the free AuditAE plugin and the hosted MCP server: pair the site with an 8-character code, choose permissions (read + draft by default; publish and write_seo opt-in), then connect Claude.ai (custom connector, OAuth sign-in), Claude Code, Claude Desktop (mcp-remote) or Cursor (ae_live_ API key); first prompts, costs (reads free, writes 5¢), self-hosted alternatives and troubleshooting.
- [The best SEO tools for agencies in 2026](https://auditae.app/blog/best-seo-tools-for-agencies): Cluster — Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, AgencyAnalytics, Screaming Frog, Search Console + GA4 and AuditAE, priced per client, with a stack by agency size.
- [How to track AI bots on your WordPress site](https://auditae.app/blog/track-ai-bots-wordpress): Cluster — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot crawl WordPress daily and Search Console can't see it; how to log every AI crawler hit, read the data, and ship pages AI engines cite (pairs with the free AuditAE plugin's crawler tracker).
- [WordPress SEO audit: how to run one in 2026](https://auditae.app/blog/wordpress-seo-audit): Cluster — a 30-minute audit that surfaces same-day fixes instead of a 47-page PDF nobody acts on.
- [Best website builder for SEO and AI search visibility (2026)](https://auditae.app/blog/best-website-builder-seo-ai-search): Cluster — WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace graded on classic SEO plus the five AI-search controls (per-bot crawler access, schema ownership, root files like llms.txt, crawler logs, portability); why self-hosted WordPress plus the free AuditAE plugin is the only stack that closes the audit→fix loop.
- [Do llms.txt files help AI search?](https://auditae.app/blog/do-llms-txt-files-help-ai-search): Cluster — what an llms.txt file does, what it doesn't (it is not a proven ranking factor), and how to use one. (AuditAE's WordPress plugin generates one for free at the site root.)
- [Top 6 Semrush alternatives for SEO (2026)](https://auditae.app/blog/semrush-alternatives): Comparison of Semrush alternatives by reason-for-switching (price vs. AI-search visibility), with AuditAE #1 for pay-per-use AI-citation tracking, then Ahrefs, Moz Pro, SpyFu, Ubersuggest, SE Ranking.
- [Image SEO for WordPress](https://auditae.app/blog/wordpress-image-seo): Cluster — the two readable image signals (file name + alt text), how to name images for SEO, and how the free AuditAE plugin renames files (original + every size) and rewrites in-content references so nothing breaks.
- [How to optimize images for the web and WordPress](https://auditae.app/blog/optimize-images-for-web): Cluster — resize, compress and pick the format, with measured before/after numbers on nine of AuditAE's own blog images (6,855 KB → 2,264 KB as WebP, 3,615 KB keeping each format), the best image size per slot, JPEG vs PNG vs WebP vs AVIF, Lighthouse 13's "Improve image delivery", what WordPress already does (2560 px -scaled threshold, quality 82 sizes) and in-place Media Library compression with the free plugin, optimize_image over MCP (1¢ per 5 images), and a dated comparison with Smush, ShortPixel, Imagify, EWWW and Optimole.
- [How to add an llms.txt file to WordPress](https://auditae.app/blog/add-llms-txt-to-wordpress): Cluster — the two-minute setup with the free AuditAE plugin (live, auto-generated, stays in sync on publish), the manual hand-upload method and why it goes stale, and how to confirm GPTBot/PerplexityBot are actually reading the file.
- [AI Readiness Score for WordPress](https://auditae.app/blog/wordpress-ai-readiness-score): Cluster — how the free AuditAE AI Readiness Score grades a WordPress site 0–100 across eight weighted, locally-computed checks (citation-crawler access in robots.txt is the heaviest at 20 points), links each failing check to its fix, and tracks a 7-day delta that is recorded daily in the background and names the check behind every rise or drop.
- [I audited Yoast's AI visibility from a chat window](https://auditae.app/blog/yoast-ai-visibility-audit): A live AuditAE run on Yoast across five prompts and four engines — named in 19 of 20 answers but URL-cited in only 9, and on "best wordpress seo plugin" AIOSEO won the link credit on 2 of 4 engines. The share-of-voice gap, narrated.
- [Yoast vs Rank Math for AI search (2026)](https://auditae.app/blog/yoast-vs-rank-math-ai-search): Comparison — both plugins now ship llms.txt generation for free, Rank Math adds free Speakable schema and MCP access, and their "AI" marketing is mostly content generation rather than AI search. Neither logs AI crawlers, audits robots.txt for AI bots, or checks citations: emitting and measuring are different jobs.
- [AI crawlers explained: what 30 bots want from your site](https://auditae.app/blog/ai-crawlers-explained): Cluster — every AI crawler worth knowing (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Bytespider and more), sorted by the three jobs they do — training collection, search indexing, user-triggered fetching — plus how to verify a bot by IP and a block-or-allow framework.
- [WordPress robots.txt: the complete 2026 guide](https://auditae.app/blog/wordpress-robots-txt): Cluster — where WordPress's virtual robots.txt lives, how a physical file silently overrides it, how to edit it safely, what a good 2026 file looks like, the classic mistakes (staging leftovers, blocked assets, the 5xx trap), and how one stale Disallow makes a site invisible to AI search.
- [A free rapid URL indexer for WordPress with IndexNow](https://auditae.app/blog/rapid-url-indexer-wordpress): Cluster — IndexNow is a notification protocol, not an indexer; it reaches Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam and Yep (never Google), and the free AuditAE plugin pings it automatically on publish.
- [Search Console platform properties](https://auditae.app/blog/search-console-platform-properties): Cluster — on July 7, 2026 Google added a Search Console property type that isn't a website: connect an Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube account and see the Google queries pulling people to your posts, no domain required. How to connect one, what Insights / Performance / Achievements actually contain, how it differs from Search profiles and the Dec 2025 social channels experiment, and the limit that doesn't move — Search Console measures Google, not whether ChatGPT or Perplexity cite you.
- [FAQ schema in 2026](https://auditae.app/blog/faq-schema): Cluster — Google restricted FAQ rich results to government/health sites in August 2023 and retired the appearance entirely on May 7, 2026, so the markup no longer changes your listing. Why to ship it anyway (answer engines cite passages, and a labelled Q&A pair is the cleanest passage you can hand them), why removing existing markup is pointless, the four validity rules, FAQPage vs QAPage, and how to verify it now that the Rich Results Test dropped FAQ support.
- [WordPress redirect plugin guide (2026)](https://auditae.app/blog/wordpress-redirect-plugin): Cluster — the honest comparison (Redirection, Rank Math's module, Yoast Premium, Safe Redirect Manager), 301s with or without a plugin, the classic mistakes (chains, loops, everything-to-homepage soft 404s), and the blind spot they all share: none can show which 404s AI crawlers are hitting — the free AuditAE plugin proposes 301s straight from its AI-bot crawl log.

## How it works

1. Add a site (brand + domain), drop in 5–10 prompts your buyers actually ask, and save the competitors you want tracked alongside you.
2. AuditAE runs each (prompt × engine) pair in parallel across all four engines — ~3 minutes for a 5-prompt × 4-engine audit, $1.65 in checks plus about $2.85 of fix-it playbook when no answer cites you (billed on LLM usage).
3. You get a per-prompt grid (cited / position / sentiment), share-of-voice panel vs. competitors, sources panel, and a competitor split that shows where the link credit went when it didn't go to you.

Brand-mention detection is deterministic regex string matching (case-insensitive, word-boundary-aware, handles prefix variants). Competitor extraction and sentiment use Claude Haiku. Source-domain matching is hostname-based. The same primitives back keyword rank tracking (DataForSEO Live SERP — each check also reports whether your domain is cited in the keyword's Google AI Overview, plus a 12-month search-volume trend; a one-time historical backfill can populate up to 12 months of past rank + AI-Overview history from DataForSEO's SERP database so a newly-tracked keyword's trend chart isn't empty) and homepage technical audits (PageSpeed Insights + crawl, plus on-demand platform/CMS detection and a backlink-authority snapshot).

## Brand mention monitoring

Two on-demand explorers on each site's Citations → Mentions tab, both DataForSEO-backed and saved as reports: AI citations pulls the historical LLM-mentions corpus (every observed Google AI Overview + ChatGPT prompt where a domain or keyword is cited, with sources and a 12-month trend), and Open-web mentions scans the Content Analysis index for news, blogs, forums, and listings that mention a brand — each tagged positive / negative / neutral. Together they give a full share-of-voice picture across AI answers and the open web; the gap between them shows where public buzz hasn't yet reached the AI models. This is the AI-search-native answer to social-listening tools like Brand24.

## AEBOT — in-product analyst chat

AEBOT is the in-dashboard assistant. It can run audits, schedule weekly trackers, manage tracked keywords and competitors (each keyword check reports rank, AI Overview citation, and demand trend), pull AI-citation and open-web brand mentions with sentiment, detect a site's platform/CMS, pull a backlink-authority summary for the site or any competitor, run technical audits, write monthly reports against the user's GA4 + Search Console + audit history, and email or save reports to Google Drive. For open-ended, multi-step work AEBOT delegates to focused specialist agents that share the workspace's durable memory: a web researcher, a link-building specialist (link-gap discovery + outreach), and a brand-reputation / AI-visibility monitor. For WordPress sites it can also design and build whole pages: a background builder specialist writes the finished page and emails you when it's live — on the companion "AuditAE AI Autopilot" theme as a server-rendered template (copy/brand stay in editable fields), or as Gutenberg blocks on any other theme — and it will adapt an HTML file or .zip design you upload into the chat onto the site's section + brand system rather than copying it verbatim. Every reply prints the cost (tokens × Anthropic list × tier markup, rounded). AEBOT runs on Claude Opus 5.5, billed at a 10× markup; when it delegates to a specialist agent those tokens bill at Sonnet's lower list price. Measured over 15 customer replies in the 30 days to 2026-10-01: median about $1.07, 90th percentile about $2.56, the largest $3.12. A reply that saves a report adds 25¢. A free Documentation mode in the same chat answers how-to questions from the product docs at no charge. AEBOT only reports numbers from real tool calls — never guesses.

## Programmatic access

- Agents without an account (no sign-up, no key): MCP server at https://auditae.app/api/mcp/pay. The free tools (extract_competitors_from_text, discover_brand_entities, validate_schema, generate_schema, run_technical_audit, check_agent_readiness, check_ai_crawlers, check_llms_txt, check_citation_free) run with no credentials. Paid tools there are pay per call (Machine Payments Protocol): they answer with a payment challenge, and the first payment creates an agent workspace and returns its API key; pricing.keyless in the server card has the details. Plain-HTTP agents can pay per request too: POST https://auditae.app/api/mpp/domain-keywords answers HTTP 402 with an MPP challenge (discovery: https://auditae.app/api/mpp/openapi.json). Paying means agreeing to AuditAE LLC's Terms of Service (https://auditae.app/terms) and Privacy Policy (https://auditae.app/privacy). Details: https://auditae.app/docs/mcp#agents-without-an-account.
- REST API (Bearer `ae_live_…` key from https://auditae.app/dashboard/keys): `POST /api/v1/audits`, `GET /api/v1/audits/{id}`, `POST /api/v1/check`, `POST /api/v1/technical`, `POST /api/v1/crawl`, `POST /api/v1/schema/generate`, `POST /api/v1/schema/validate`, `POST /api/v1/entities/discover`, `GET /api/v1/billing`, `POST /api/v1/billing/top-up`. Same per-check prices as the dashboard.
- MCP server: hosted at https://auditae.app/api/mcp (Streamable HTTP); no AuditAE package to install. Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, and VS Code connect to the URL and sign in with an AuditAE account (OAuth, no key): Claude as a custom connector (claude.ai, Claude Desktop and Cowork), ChatGPT as a custom MCP server (a plugin), VS Code (GitHub Copilot) from an install link, Claude Code with `claude mcp add --transport http --scope user auditae "https://auditae.app/api/mcp"` then /mcp → Authenticate, and Codex with `codex mcp add auditae --url "https://auditae.app/api/mcp"` (then `codex mcp login auditae` if no browser opens). Cursor and Windsurf use the URL plus `Authorization: Bearer ae_live_…` in the user-scope config (~/.cursor/mcp.json for Cursor), as do other clients that can't sign in. Claude Desktop can also bridge with `mcp-remote` and a key (config at https://auditae.app/docs/mcp#claude-desktop). Sign-in connects your personal workspace. Team workspaces use an API key. Setup walkthrough: https://auditae.app/docs/mcp. get_fix_plan works for any website: it detects the platform (WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, Framer, or a code-built site such as Next.js or Astro) and returns each fix with steps for that platform and paste-ready JSON-LD and meta tags — paired WordPress sites are edited directly with the wp_* tools, code-built sites by the user's coding agent in the repo. Machine-readable server card with every tool's price and read/write hints: https://auditae.app/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json. Agents can check credit with get_balance, get a Stripe checkout link for their user with create_top_up_link, or pay with a Stripe shared payment token (spt_…) the user approved via pay_with_shared_payment_token. Same over REST: `GET /api/v1/billing` and `POST /api/v1/billing/top-up` with `{ amount_usd }` (plus `shared_payment_token` to pay directly); an out-of-credit REST call returns HTTP 402 with a `top_up` object saying exactly how to pay (an agent workspace's key that has never been funded answers HTTP 403 `workspace_unfunded`, with the same `top_up` object, on every REST route except the two billing routes). Recommended agent loop: list_sites (site ids, domains, competitor lists) → audits or checks → get_fix_plan (checks the live sitemap, llms.txt and JSON-LD first, and marks fixes already live as already_done) → apply → submit_urls (free IndexNow ping to Bing, Yandex and others, sent from AuditAE's server) → schedule_recheck (re-asks the plan's verify_prompts N days later, billed per check when it runs; read the before/after with get_recheck). To keep watching a site: monitor_citations re-asks its questions weekly or monthly (billed per check when each run fires) and emails the owner when a citation is gained or lost; get_changes (free) opens with the site's weekly briefing when it has one (what moved this week and up to 5 priced fixes, each run only if the user agrees), then says what gained or lost a citation since the previous run, who is cited instead, and which tracked keywords moved. Each site keeps a brief (brand, customers, competitors, keywords, strategy) that outlives sessions and AI clients: get_site_brief reads it and update_site_brief saves to it (both free); AEBOT and get_fix_plan read the same notes. SEO data for any keyword or domain, per call with no subscription: get_serp (live Google results with AI Overview sources, 5¢), get_domain_keywords (what any domain ranks for, 10¢), get_competing_domains (its organic competitors, 10¢), get_keyword_metrics (volume, trend, CPC, difficulty for up to 60 keywords, 10¢). run_technical_audit (3 pages a day free, then 2¢ a page; the same page again that day is free) answers within about 25 seconds; if PageSpeed is still measuring it says so and a repeat call a minute later returns the cached result. optimize_image resizes and compresses images to WebP (or keeps their format) and returns 48-hour download links with the size before and after: a Site Audit crawl's images over 200 KB, largest first, or any public image URL, 1¢ per 5 images optimized (an image that barely shrinks is free). Agencies can share a site's read-only client portal (traffic, Google search, conversions and AI visibility; free, switched on under Integrations) and get its link with get_client_portal / update_client_portal, from MCP or AEBOT.

Same per-check billing pipeline whether you use the dashboard, REST API, or MCP — no separate API tier.

## Reference

- [Methodology](https://auditae.app/methodology)
- [Climate](https://auditae.app/climate): AuditAE contributes 1% of every purchase to permanent carbon removal through Stripe Climate — what that is and isn't (not carbon neutrality, not a surcharge), with a link to the public Stripe contribution page.
- [Privacy policy](https://auditae.app/privacy)
- [Terms of service](https://auditae.app/terms)
- [Sitemap](https://auditae.app/sitemap.xml)

## Contact

- Email: support@auditae.app