AI Discoverability
Check whether AI search engines and crawlers can find and access your site.
The AI Discoverability tab shows whether AI systems (like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity) can discover your site the same way a crawler would — starting from robots.txt, finding your sitemap, and checking whether major AI bots are allowed to read your pages.
Why it matters
Traditional SEO focuses on Google. AI-powered search and assistants use their own crawlers too. If your robots.txt blocks those bots, omits your sitemap, or points crawlers to the wrong file, your content may be invisible in AI answers even when it ranks fine in Google.
Running a discoverability check gives you a plain-language report of what Averi found and what to fix.
What you'll need
- Your website URL set in Brand Core.
- A publicly reachable site with a sitemap (or a path Averi can discover via
robots.txt).
You do not need Google Search Console connected for this tab — that's only required for Index Health Check and some Analytics.
Where to find it
In the left sidebar under Foundations, click Sitemap. The page opens on AI Discoverability by default.
When your sitemap data is loaded, you'll see Last updated and a refresh control in the top-right of the tab row. Click refresh after you change robots.txt or your sitemap on your live site to pull fresh results.
Run a discoverability check
If you haven't run a check yet, you'll see Not yet assessed with a Run check button.
Start the check
Click Run check. Averi crawls your site in the background — looking for robots.txt, your sitemap location, and rules that affect AI crawlers.
Wait for results
You'll see a progress state (Running discovery check…). Large sitemaps or slow servers can take a few minutes. You can leave the page and come back; if a check was already running, Averi resumes where it left off.
Review the report
When the check finishes, summary cards, crawler access, a step-by-step trail, and any recommended fixes appear on the tab.
Summary cards
At the top of the tab (after a successful check):
- Sitemap URLs — how many URLs Averi found in your sitemap.
- Averi processing — progress on analyzing your pages for internal linking. While the badge says Analyzing link graph, Averi is still fetching pages; when done, you'll see how many internal link options are ready.
- Your domain / sitemap — the sitemap URL Averi used, with badges such as robots.txt (found or missing), Sitemap declared (listed in
robots.txt), or Sitemap via fallback (found at a common default path instead ofrobots.txt).
AI crawler access
The AI crawler access row shows how major AI crawlers are treated on your site:
- GPTBot (ChatGPT)
- ClaudeBot (Claude)
- PerplexityBot
- Google-Extended
- CCBot (Common Crawl)
- All other crawlers
Each tile is labeled Allowed, Default (no explicit rule — crawling is allowed), or Blocked. Hover a tile for the full crawler name.
Discovery steps
Below the crawler row, a step trail walks through what Averi checked — typically:
- robots.txt — whether the file exists and can be read.
- Sitemap directive — whether
robots.txtpoints to a sitemap URL. - AI bot rules — whether specific AI crawlers are disallowed.
- Sitemap fetch — whether the sitemap file loads and how many URLs it contains.
Each step shows an outcome (found, not found, error, or skipped) and detail text explaining what happened.
Visibility summary
A banner summarizes overall AI visibility with a headline and a badge:
- Visible to AI — crawlers can reach your content cleanly.
- Gaps found — some issues may limit discovery.
- Blocked / not found — serious barriers (missing sitemap, blocked bots, etc.).
If everything looks good and there are no issues to fix, you'll see No issues found with a confirmation that AI crawlers can discover your site cleanly.
Fixing flagged issues
When problems are found, they appear one at a time as Recommended fix cards (use the arrows to move between issues if there are several). Each card includes:
- A severity label — Critical, Warning, or Info
- A plain-language title and explanation
- A fix snippet you can copy (use the copy icon) and apply on your site or in your host's settings
Common issue types:
- No sitemap found — Averi couldn't load a sitemap at the expected location.
- No robots.txt — the file is missing or unreachable.
- No sitemap directive —
robots.txtexists but doesn't declare a sitemap URL. - AI bot disallowed — one or more AI crawlers are blocked in
robots.txt.
For issues tied to robots.txt, use Edit robots.txt to open Schema Setup on the robots.txt tab, where you can review and update your file in Averi.
Changes on your live site can take time to show up. After updating robots.txt or your sitemap, use the refresh control on the Sitemap page and run Run check again if results still look stale.
Tips
- Run AI Discoverability before Index Health Check when onboarding a new site — fixing crawler and sitemap discovery issues helps Google and AI systems alike.
- Pair with Schema Setup — strong
robots.txtand Organization schema together make it easier for search engines and AI to understand your brand. - Watch internal-link processing — once Averi processing finishes, internal link suggestions in the content editor improve because more pages have been analyzed.
Need Help?
Reach out to us at [email protected] - you'll always get a human to talk through solutions with.