# A 30-minute AI search check you can do yourself URL: https://aura8.ai/blog/a-30-minute-ai-search-check-you-can-do-yourself/ Updated: 3 November 2026 > You can run a rough AI search check yourself in about 30 minutes: read robots.txt, ask for your home page by crawler name, check your sitemap, view the page without scripts, compare your facts across listings, and ask assistants your customers' questions, recording the date. It will catch common problems but guarantees nothing. ## Can you check your own AI readiness? Yes, a rough version. This takes about half an hour with no special tools. It will not replace a full check, but it will catch the most common problems. ## The seven steps - Read your robots.txt. Open yourbusiness.com.au/robots.txt. Look for lines that block everything, or that name a crawler such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot or OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI and Anthropic say each of their crawlers can be controlled separately. See our article on the difference. - Ask for your home page by crawler name. Use the command in our robots.txt article. A normal page returns tens of thousands of characters. A handful means something is turning the request away. - Check you have a sitemap. Open yourbusiness.com.au/sitemap.xml. It should list your real pages. - View the page without scripts. Is your name, location and what you do in the text? If the page is blank without scripts, many readers will see nothing. - Compare your facts. Name, address, phone, hours and services on your site, your Google Business Profile and two directories. Note every difference. - Ask an assistant. Ask two or three assistants the questions your customers ask. Write down the exact question, the platform, the date and what it said about you. - Optionally, add llms.txt. It is cheap to publish. Google says you do not need new files for its AI features, and we have no evidence it changes what assistants say. 30 minutesEnough to catch the most common problems. Not a replacement for a full check. ## What do the results mean? Our reading. Steps 1 to 4 are about whether you can be read at all. Step 5 is about whether you are described consistently. Step 6 is a single dated sample, not a measurement, because an assistant can word an answer differently each time. Repeat it under the same conditions to compare over time. ## What if you would rather not? Our free check does steps 1 to 5 for you, tests four AI crawlers live, scores nine dimensions out of 100 and shows the first findings. A person reviews your full report. ## What does this article not tell you? - It is a quick screen. It does not sample many pages or score your content. - A clean result does not mean you will be named by an AI. - Crawler names and rules change, so check the companies' current pages. ## Is your website ready for AI? Our free check reads your site the way AI tools do, tests four AI crawlers live and scores nine dimensions out of 100. Run the free check ## Sources - Overview of OpenAI crawlers · OpenAI developer documentation, undated page. Read by us on 27 October 2026. - Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler? · Anthropic support, undated page. Read by us on 27 October 2026. - AI features and your website · Google Search Central, undated page. Read by us on 27 October 2026. We keep what a source says separate from our reading of it. If a source is from another country or a different date, we say so. We are not giving advice, and nothing here is a promise of rankings, citations or sales. ## What should I read next? ARTICLE ### How to measure AI visibility without fooling yourself Read the articleARTICLE ### Google switched on AI Overviews in Australia Read the articleARTICLE ### When Google shows an AI answer, fewer people click Read the article ## Questions ### How do I test whether an AI crawler can read my site? Ask for your home page using the crawler's name and look at how much comes back. A handful of characters means something is turning the request away. ### Is one question to an assistant enough to measure my visibility? No. It is one dated sample. Repeat the same questions on the same platforms over time to see change.