FAQ.Frequently asked questions.

AI search visibility is how easily AI agents, LLMs, and answer engines can find, understand, and cite your brand. Benchmarq measures the part you control: how ready your site is to be found, read, and used by them.

Google ranking and AI visibility are measured differently. Google rewards links and authority. AI engines look at how clearly your content is structured, how directly it answers questions, and whether your site can be parsed and trusted as a source. A top Google ranking does not tell you whether your site can be used in AI-generated answers.

SEO tools report how you rank in traditional search. Benchmarq tests how ready your site is for AI search: whether AI crawlers can reach it, read it, and use it, with a fix for each finding.

No. The report is designed for every team. Marketing and business leads get a clear score and prioritized actions. Engineers get the technical detail to act on them. You can even use it with your own AI via MCP.

No. Benchmarq tests your publicly accessible website. Enter a domain and the engine does the rest.

Benchmarq tests your publicly accessible website, no installation or configuration required. Just enter your domain and the engine scans your pages, structured data, crawler access, semantic clarity, and AI readiness signals across 200+ tests. See the audit engine.

A standard scan takes less than 2 minutes. The audit engine scans your domain and generates a prioritized report when it finishes.

Each track is scored individually from weighted tests against established standards and best practices. The four track scores combine into a single AI readiness score from 0 to 100, with every deduction tied to a specific, fixable issue.

More than 200 tests across the four tracks. Rules are updated weekly, and a new score version is released every quarter.

No. The checks are deterministic rules and do not use AI. Read the AI statement.

In the report in the app, with its result, severity, and fix. See the reports.

The core tests are deterministic rules, so the same site gets the same result. The audit does not use AI to score your site.

Yes. The checks reference lists each test with what it measures and how to fix it. Browse the checks.

The audit does not use AI to score your site. The core tests are deterministic rules, so the same site gets the same result. Read the AI statement.

You get an overall AI readiness score from 0 to 100, a score for each of the four tracks, and a prioritized list of fixes. You generate the report in the app and download it as JSON or as a shareable HTML report. PDF and a badge are also available. See the reports.

Most fixes are picked up within days as AI crawlers and answer engines re-index your site. Structural changes like schema updates tend to reflect fastest. Benchmarq lets you re-scan after fixing to track your progress.

Reports are private to your account unless you choose to share them.

Benchmarq only scans publicly accessible pages. We don't store your site data. We do store your scan results, and they are private to your account unless you choose to share them.

Yes. The Benchmarq MCP server lets an AI assistant read scores, issues, and score history, compare competitors, and start page scans. Competitor tools require the Premium plan. See Benchmarq MCP.

The Model Context Protocol is an open standard that lets AI assistants call tools and read data from other services. Benchmarq runs a remote MCP server, so a compatible assistant can use your Benchmarq results directly.

Any client that supports remote MCP servers can connect with the server URL. Support for adding remote servers differs per assistant, so check the connector settings of the one you use.

No. It can start scans only for domains you already track in Benchmarq, and each scan uses one scan credit.

No. The 10 tools read results and start page scans. Adding domains and linking competitors happen in the web app. See the web app.

Yes. The Benchmarq MCP server lets an assistant read scores, issues and full scan reports. See Benchmarq MCP.

Yes. The MCP server has a competitor report and a check-by-check gap for one track. See Benchmarq MCP.

Yes. The MCP server has the score history of a page and of a whole domain. See Benchmarq MCP.

No. Agentic App is reported separately and does not change the overall score.

The add-on exists for app-like pages. On a page it does not apply to, its score stays empty, which is not an error.

Yes. Both add-ons can be turned on together and are reported separately. See the agentic apps suite.

Up to four competitor domains.

Yes. Every domain runs through the same audit, so the scores are comparable.

Run a scan for the domain in the web app. Tracked domains appear on your dashboard. How to start a scan.

Scan after every change that could affect crawling, markup, or content, and at least whenever you want a fresh score to report on.

Scores from every scan are kept as history for the domain, and any past scan can be opened again by its report.

No. Agentic Commerce is reported separately and does not change the overall score.

It checks payment protocols such as AP2.

No. Agentic App and Agentic Commerce results are reported separately and do not change the overall score.

If you want to run audits across multiple client domains, white-label reports, and use the API to integrate Benchmarq into existing workflows, then please get in touch with us. Contact the team.

Yes. The free plan includes 4 scanned pages per month and 1 tracked domain, with the four core tracks: CORE, AIO, AEO, and GEO.

Premium. It includes competitive benchmarking against up to 4 competitors and historical insight tracking. Free and Standard do not include competitor benchmarking. See competitor benchmarking.

Agentic App (ARO) starts on Standard. Agentic Commerce (ACO) is on Premium. See the agentic apps suite.

For audits across several client domains, white-label reports, and API access, get in touch. Contact the team.

Reading scores, history and issues for your tracked domains works with an account. Competitor tools need the Premium plan, and the detailed issue lists need the full-report entitlement. See pricing.

Agentic App (ARO) is on the Standard and Premium plans, not on Free. See pricing.

Agentic Commerce (ACO) is on the Premium plan. See pricing.

Agentic App (ARO) starts on the Standard plan. Competitor benchmarking, historical insight tracking, and Agentic Commerce (ACO) are on the Premium plan. See pricing.

No. GEO is about being cited in generated answers. AEO is about making your content easy for answer engines and agents to read and quote. They overlap, and Benchmarq scores them as separate tracks. What is AEO?.

No. You can make the site easier to find, read, and quote. Whether an engine cites it is up to the engine.

Most fixes are picked up within days as AI crawlers and answer engines re-index your site. Scan again after a fix to see the score change.

No. Most GEO work is content and markup on your own site. A scan shows what to fix first.

It is related. Featured snippets were an early form of a direct answer in search. AEO applies the same idea to answer engines and AI agents, which read your page and write or quote an answer.

It helps, because it tells a machine what the page is about. It must match what is visible on the page. Schema for AI search.

Run a scan. The AEO track score shows how answer-ready your pages are, with the fix for each deduction.

No. AI Overviews are Google's AI-generated summaries in search. AIO in Benchmarq is AI Index Optimization, the discoverability of your pages in AI-powered search.

The basics overlap: reachable pages, sitemaps, and clear signals. AIO adds what AI products need, such as access for AI crawlers and markup an agent can use.

Check that AI crawlers are allowed to fetch your important pages, then add structured data. AI crawler access.

No. robots.txt tells crawlers what they may fetch. llms.txt describes your site and points to your best pages. AI crawler access.

A companion file with the full text of your key pages in one place, so a model can read them without crawling each page.

Yes. Benchmarq publishes llms.txt and llms-full.txt at benchmarq.io.

The AI crawler rules do not change how a traditional search engine ranks you, because those use their own crawlers. They do decide whether AI products can read your pages.

Well-behaved ones do, and the major vendors document that they do. Check each vendor's documentation, and use your firewall for anything you must enforce.

After any change to robots.txt, your firewall, or your CDN, and whenever crawler names change.

No. It removes guesswork about what the page is, which helps machines read it. Whether an engine cites you is up to the engine.

Both are valid schema.org formats. JSON-LD is easier to maintain because it is separate from the HTML.

No. Markup that does not match the visible content is misleading and can be ignored or penalized by the tools that read it.