Optimize for AI Search with Site Audit
Optimize for AI Search with Site Audit
July 1, 2025
Semrush has introduced a brand-new AI Search category in the Site Audit tool, helping SEO professionals and web teams prepare their websites to be found and cited by AI search engines.
This practice is also known as Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or LLM Optimization.
This update introduces a new category in the Issues report, along with specific checks aimed at auditing your site’s readiness to appear in AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, AI Mode, Claude, and Perplexity.
These checks focus on technical aspects that help large language models (LLMs) understand, trust, and cite your content.
What’s New: AI Search Category in Site Audit
You’ll now see a dedicated “AI Search” section in the Issues tab of your Site Audit reports. This new category combines both new and existing checks that impact your visibility in AI-driven search results.
With this update, we’ve added one new check so far:
- Llms.txt not found
The other checks in this AI Search category include:
- Links with non-descriptive anchor text
- Pages with only one incoming internal link
- Links with no anchor text
Each issue includes clear guidance for fixing the problem, from creating a proper llms.txt to improving your internal linking. Fewer internal links can signal lower importance and make your content less likely to be surfaced or cited by AI search.
Why It Matters for AI Visibility
AI systems like ChatGPT don’t just look at your rankings—they generate summaries based on how your content is structured.
If your site lacks a clear llms.txt file it risks being misrepresented by AI systems. Also, internal links with descriptive anchor text can help AI systems better understand your content's importance and context.
This new check makes it easy to quickly identify any issues that may limit your exposure in AI search results.
How the Check for LLMs.txt Works:
The new missing llms.txt check detects whether your site lacks this emerging standard that helps LLMs crawl and understand your content.
More AI Search Checks to Come: Get Ahead of the Wave
As our team continues to research and develop solutions in this exciting field, we’ll be releasing additional checks to the Site Audit tool that will be focused on AI search optimization.
As AI becomes a major source of information for consumers, optimizing for AI search is no longer optional—it’s foundational.
The new AI Search category in Site Audit gives you actionable steps to improve crawlability—a key factor in helping your content appear in generative search responses.
Availability
The new AI Search category and checks are available now in the Site Audit tool for all Semrush subscription levels.
Run your next audit and make sure your site is AI-ready.
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