Crawl integrity
robots.txt status, sitemap.xml presence and validity, per-URL HTTP status, canonical tags, and the share of audited pages that returned clean HTML.
AI citation audit
What an AI citation audit checks and what NiceCite reports
An AI citation audit is a live crawl of your site graded against the signals AI answer engines use to decide what to quote. NiceCite reads your HTML, parses your schema, and grades six categories — then returns an evidence-based fix plan you can act on the same day.
What NiceCite checks during an audit
Schema & structured data
JSON-LD parsed per page, flattened across @graph and array @type values. Detected types include Organization, WebSite, SoftwareApplication, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList, Article, Product, and LocalBusiness.
Entity clarity
How clearly each audited page names the brand, product, and category. Title and H1 specificity, About-page presence, and contact/identity exposure.
Answer readiness
Direct-answer paragraphs near the top, FAQ blocks, list and table structure, quotable sentence density — the signals an AI engine uses to lift a citation cleanly.
Trust signals
External links to authoritative sources, social profile linkage, contact info exposure, HTTPS, and agreement between visible content and structured data.
Content coverage
Word counts, heading depth, internal link density, and presence of topic-defining pages (features, pricing, FAQ, methodology). Sites without depth rarely get cited.
Read the full scoring methodology for exact category weights.
What is inside the report
NiceCite Score and six category scores
An overall grade plus a breakdown across answer readiness, entity clarity, schema, trust, content coverage, and crawlability. Each grade links back to the evidence behind it.
Evidence map
Per-page evidence: detected schema types, headings, word counts, meta presence, canonical, and the signals each category was scored against.
Visual site scan
Screenshots of audited pages so you can see what the crawler saw, alongside the parsed signals from each URL.
Fix plan
A prioritized list of moves ordered by impact. Each fix is tied to a specific page and a specific signal the audit flagged — no generic checklist.
Generated assets
On premium or with credits: FAQ drafts, JSON-LD schema snippets, on-page rewrites, and content briefs scoped to the page that needs them. Clearly labeled as AI-assisted.
Score integrity panel
The exact URL list, page signature, and scoring version used. So you can verify what was scored, reproduce the result, and explain it to a client.
How to act on the report
- Open the fix plan and start with the top three moves — these are weighted by impact.
- Open the evidence map for any category that surprised you, and verify the per-page signals.
- Use generated FAQ drafts, schema snippets, and rewrites as a starting point for editorial review.
- Re-run the audit after shipping to confirm the change moved the score.
Free vs Premium audits
Free accounts get a real audit, all six category scores, the fix plan, the evidence map, and a shareable report. Premium increases pages per audit, unlocks historical tracking and competitor comparison, adds monitoring, and includes monthly generation credits for FAQ drafts, schema, and rewrites.
FAQ
What does an AI citation audit actually check?
It crawls your live URLs and grades them against six signals AI answer engines rely on: answer readiness, entity clarity, schema, trust, content coverage, and crawlability. Every grade traces back to evidence pulled from your HTML.
How long does an audit take?
About 30 seconds for most sites. Larger sites with deeper crawl limits can take a few minutes. The report opens automatically when the audit completes.
Do I need to sign up to run a free audit?
No. The free audit runs without signup. Creating a free account gives you per-domain history, shareable report links, and generation credits.
Does the audit modify my site?
No. NiceCite only reads your live HTML. It does not log in, write anything to your site, or modify your content.
Will the audit guarantee a citation in ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews?
No tool can. NiceCite gives you an evidence-based score and a prioritized fix list built from what your site contains today, so the work you ship has a real reason to improve citation readiness.
Run an AI citation audit on your site
Free, no signup required. You get a real crawl, six category scores, the evidence map, and a prioritized fix plan within about 30 seconds.