faq // 35 questions, answers first
Questions, answered first.
Every answer starts with the answer. That is what dotmap asks of the pages it audits, so it is what this page does.
01 // 6 questions
The basics
What is dotmap?
dotmap is a site-wide SEO and AEO audit. It crawls pages up to the selected limit, has TypeSafe's Jev model judge each fetched page on twelve dimensions in a single call, runs eighteen technical checks, and produces a shareable report with a score per page and for the whole site. Signed-in users can run a deeper sitemap-assisted crawl and explore a private dot map. Coverage limits are shown in the report.
What is AEO (or GEO) and how does dotmap measure it?
AEO (answer engine optimization) is writing pages so that AI answer engines such as Google AI Overviews, Gemini, ChatGPT and Perplexity can quote them as sources. The same work is also called GEO (generative engine optimization) or LLM SEO. dotmap estimates, per page, how directly the page answers the question implied by its title and how likely a self-contained passage could be lifted as a citation. These are calibrated probabilities from Jev, not measurements of actual citations; for mention tracking you still need a prompt monitor.
How is dotmap different from Profound, Peec or Semrush's AI toolkit?
Those tools monitor prompts: did the model mention your brand today across a set of questions. dotmap scores URLs: is this page written so a model can cite it, and how does it hold up on classic SEO signals. It is per page, runs in seconds, costs a fraction of a cent, and every report has a public link.
What does a page get scored on?
Jev scores title quality, meta description, content depth, heading structure, search-intent match, readability and answer-readiness, and judges whether the title matches the content, whether the page is a utility page, whether it is worth indexing, whether it has a clear call to action, and whether an answer engine could cite it. Technical checks cover title and meta length, H1s, alt text, canonical, viewport, Open Graph, JSON-LD structured data, response time and internal links.
How much does an audit cost?
Jev is billed at $0.042 per million input tokens with free output. A typical page is about 2,400 tokens, so 50 pages cost roughly $0.005 and 100 pages about a cent. dotmap shows the running cost live while it crawls.
What do I get when I sign in?
Signed-in users can start a deep crawl at the site root, discover pages from sitemaps and internal links, score up to 1,000 fetched pages, save reports over time, and explore the pages and their links in a private interactive dot map. Pages beyond the limit or inaccessible to the crawler are reported as gaps, not silently claimed as covered.
02 // 10 questions
AI search: AEO and GEO
Is AEO the same as GEO?
Mostly, yes. AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) both mean making pages that AI systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can find, understand and quote. AEO is the older term, from voice and featured-snippet answers; GEO is used more for generative AI answers. The work is the same.
What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
SEO aims to rank a page in a list of search results; GEO aims to have an AI-generated answer quote or cite the page. They overlap heavily: AI answers are built from pages that search engines can crawl and index. GEO adds emphasis on answering questions directly and writing passages that make sense when quoted on their own.
Can GEO replace SEO?
No. GEO builds on SEO rather than replacing it. Google's AI Overviews draw on pages in Google's index, and many AI assistants search the web before they answer, so a page that cannot be crawled, indexed or ranked is unlikely to be cited. Do the SEO basics first, then make answers easy to quote.
Is SEO dead now with AI?
No. AI answers still depend on search: Google builds AI Overviews from its own index, and assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity run web searches and cite the pages they find. What has changed is that pages also need to answer questions clearly and directly, so that an AI engine can quote them.
How do I get my content cited by AI?
Make each page answer one question clearly, with the answer in the first sentence or two, and write passages that make sense when quoted alone. Keep pages crawlable and indexed, cite sources, use clear headings, and keep facts current. Mentions of your brand on other trusted sites also make AI engines more likely to recommend you.
How do I rank a website in Google AI Overviews?
There is no separate ranking system to target. Google says the same SEO best practices apply to AI Overviews and no special markup or file is required. A page needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet in Google Search, and it helps if it answers the question directly with helpful, original content.
What is an llms.txt file?
llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file at the root of a website, such as example.com/llms.txt, that summarises the site and lists its most useful pages in Markdown for AI models to read. It was proposed in 2024 and is a convention, not a standard that search engines have adopted.
Does llms.txt really work?
It is unproven. Google says you do not need any new machine-readable file for AI Overviews, and no major AI search engine has said it uses llms.txt for ranking or citations. It is cheap to add and some AI tools and coding assistants read it, so it can help, but it is not a substitute for clear, crawlable pages.
Is llms.txt mandatory?
No. llms.txt is optional. Search engines and AI crawlers read your normal pages, sitemap and robots.txt. Adding llms.txt does no harm and can help AI tools that look for it, but a site without one is not penalised.
What is the best tool for generative engine optimization?
It depends on the question you need answered. To find which pages are not ready to be cited and fix them, use a page-level audit such as dotmap. To measure whether AI answers mention your brand, use an AI visibility tracker such as Profound or Peec AI. Google Search Console shows what Google actually sends you.
03 // 6 questions
SEO audits
Can ChatGPT do an SEO audit?
Partly. ChatGPT can review a page you paste in or open a few pages with web search, and it gives useful suggestions. It does not crawl a whole site, run the same technical checks every time, or produce scores you can compare between runs. Use a crawler for the audit and an AI assistant to help with the fixes.
What are SEO audit tools?
SEO audit tools crawl a website and report problems that affect search visibility: broken links, missing titles and descriptions, duplicate pages, slow pages, missing structured data and blocked crawlers. Some, like dotmap, also judge content quality and whether AI answer engines could quote each page. Examples include Screaming Frog, Semrush Site Audit, Ahrefs Site Audit and dotmap.
Which is the free SEO audit tool?
Several are free. dotmap is free during beta and audits up to 1,000 pages per signed-in crawl. Google Search Console is free for sites you own, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is free for verified sites, and Screaming Frog's free version crawls up to 500 URLs. Google Lighthouse checks one page at a time.
How do I check the SEO score of my website for free?
Enter your site's address at dotmap.ai/audit. dotmap crawls the site, scores every page out of 100 for SEO and AI answer readiness, and gives a site score with the weakest pages first. No account is needed for a first audit. Google Lighthouse also gives a free SEO score for a single page.
How do I audit a website for SEO?
Crawl every page, then check four things: whether search engines can crawl and index each page, whether titles, descriptions, headings and structured data are correct, whether the content answers the searcher's question, and whether pages load quickly. Fix the weakest important pages first, then re-run the audit to confirm the fixes worked.
How much does an SEO audit cost?
It ranges from free to thousands of dollars. Automated tools such as dotmap, Google Search Console and free crawler tiers cost nothing to start. Paid SEO suites charge a monthly subscription, and agencies or consultants usually quote a project price based on the size of the site and how deep the review goes.
04 // 5 questions
Scores
How is the dotmap site score calculated?
The site score is the average of the scores of every indexable page that was analysed. Pages marked noindex are listed in the report but not counted. Each page score combines Jev's content judgments with the results of eighteen technical checks, so a strong home page cannot hide weak pages elsewhere.
What do the grades A to F mean?
Grades group page scores into bands: A is 85 and above, B is 70 to 84, C is 55 to 69, D is 40 to 54, and F is below 40. The report shows how many pages fall in each band.
Where do the Google scores come from?
The two Google scores are Lighthouse categories fetched from Google's PageSpeed Insights API for your home page on mobile: SEO basics and Performance. You can run the same test yourself at pagespeed.web.dev.
Does Bing have an SEO score?
No. Microsoft publishes webmaster guidelines but no score. The Bing readiness number in dotmap is dotmap's own estimate, based on HTTPS, robots.txt, your sitemap, Bing verification and the page issues found in the latest audit.
Does a high score mean I will rank?
No. A high score means the inspected pages fit dotmap's rubric. Search engines and answer engines make their own decisions. Use Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to see actual search performance.
05 // 4 questions
Crawling and limits
How many pages can dotmap audit?
An audit without an account covers 100 pages by default and up to 500. Signed-in users can run a deep crawl of up to 1,000 pages from the audit page, and a full background audit of up to 5,000 pages from a saved site.
Which pages does the crawler visit?
It starts at the URL you enter, stays on the same site and follows internal links up to the depth you set. A deep crawl also reads the site's sitemaps. It fetches HTML pages and skips assets such as images and scripts.
What happens to pages it could not reach?
They are listed. Pages that were discovered but not fetched, because of the page limit or an error, appear in the report as not crawled, so coverage is never overstated.
Can I audit a site I do not own?
You can audit any public website, and you are responsible for having the right to analyse it. Only public pages are fetched; nothing behind a login is read.
06 // 4 questions
Accounts, monitoring and sharing
Is dotmap free?
Yes, dotmap is free while it is in beta. The free plan saves up to 10 sites per account.
How does monitoring work?
Turn monitoring on for a saved site and dotmap re-audits it daily or weekly. It compares each run with the last one and alerts you by email or Slack when the score drops past the threshold you set, or when pages break or stop being citable.
Who can see my report?
A report link can be opened by anyone who has it. Reports are not listed publicly. Do not share a link if the report contains URLs you would not want others to see.
Can I use dotmap from Claude, Cursor or VS Code?
Yes. dotmap runs an MCP server, so an AI assistant can run audits, list your sites and read reports. Audits started this way cover up to 25 pages and are limited to 10 an hour and 40 a day.
Still stuck? The how it works page walks through an audit step by step, or run an audit and read your own report.
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The quickest answer is your own report.
Enter a URL and see every page scored in a few seconds.