---
type: concept
title: AI Search Visibility
description: How readable and citable a website is to AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini) — the thing SearchAudit's score measures.
resource: https://searchaudit.io/audit
tags: [concept, ai-search, aeo, geo, visibility-score]
timestamp: 2026-07-26T00:00:00Z
---

# AI Search Visibility

**AI search visibility** is how well an AI answer engine can reach, parse, understand, and
cite a website. Unlike classic SEO (ranking blue links), AI engines synthesise answers from
content they can actually read in the server response — so a page that renders only on the
client is effectively invisible, no matter how it looks in a browser.

Also called **Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)** and **Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)**.

## What drives it

- **Server-rendered content** an AI crawler receives without executing JavaScript.
- **Structured data** (JSON-LD) that names entities, products, and services.
- **Semantic HTML** and a clean heading hierarchy.
- **AI-specific files**: `robots.txt` that allows AI bots, `llms.txt`, a sitemap.
- **Complete meta tags** for accurate summaries.

## Measured by

- [[service-ai-visibility-audit]] — the 0–100 score across six categories.
- Fixed with [[product-fix-pass]] / [[product-pro]] / [[service-done-for-you]].
- Provider: [[brand-searchaudit]]. Index: [[README]].