The AI Markdown > AI Visibility tab shows whether AI assistants can find, read and cite your site, and what to do next. It has a setup checklist, a crawler access test, the training crawler setting, your Citation Readiness results, IndexNow, AI fixing and all feature settings.
What is the Get cited checklist? #
The checklist is built from your site’s real state, so a step is ticked only when it is actually done. Each open step has a button that takes you there or starts it.
| Step | Done when |
|---|---|
| llms.txt is live | The llms.txt endpoint is enabled |
| Your site is described for AI | Your llms.txt summary has at least 12 words (use Write with AI on the Settings tab) |
| AI crawlers can reach your site | The last crawler access test passed |
| URLs submitted with IndexNow | IndexNow is on and a manual submission was accepted |
| All content scanned for citation readiness | At least 90% of published items have a score (pages removed from the scan do not count) |
| Average readiness score of 60+ | The average score is 60 or higher |
| Every product category has a description | Store sites only: no category page has fewer than 50 words |
| First verified AI crawler visit | At least one IP-verified AI crawler visit was recorded |
How do I check if AI crawlers can access my site? #
Click Run test in the AI crawler access test. The plugin requests your homepage as each of these crawlers and reads your live robots.txt:
- OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User (ChatGPT search and live answers), documented in OpenAI’s crawler overview
- Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User
- PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User, documented in Perplexity’s crawler guide
- Googlebot and Bingbot (Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot)
A normal browser request is included for comparison.
| Result | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Reachable / Allowed | All good | Nothing |
| Blocked, HTTP 403 or 503 | A firewall, CDN or security plugin blocks this crawler | In Cloudflare, check the bot settings and AI Crawl Control. Check your security plugin’s bot rules |
| Blocked, “Cloudflare challenge” | Cloudflare shows the crawler a challenge page | Allow verified bots in Cloudflare |
| Disallowed in robots.txt | Your robots.txt tells this crawler not to crawl | Remove the rule. Keep search crawlers allowed |
The test runs from your own server, and CDN rules that trust verified crawler IP addresses can treat the real crawlers differently. A block in the test is still a strong warning sign. Test requests are never counted in analytics.
Should I block AI training crawlers? #
It is your choice, and it does not affect AI search. Some crawlers only collect data to train AI models: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, Meta-ExternalAgent, CCBot, Bytespider, cohere-ai and Diffbot. Under Settings > AI training crawlers you can choose:
- Allow (default): nothing changes.
- Block: adds
Disallow: /rules for these crawlers to your robots.txt.
Blocking training crawlers does not remove you from ChatGPT search, Claude, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews, because those use separate search and user crawlers, which this setting never blocks. Google explains the role of Google-Extended in its overview of Google crawlers.
This setting only works when WordPress generates your robots.txt. If a physical robots.txt file exists in your site root, the plugin shows a warning, and you need to edit that file instead.
What else is on the AI Visibility tab? #
- Citation readiness: your average score, how many items are Ready (75+), Close (50–74) or Needs work (<50), Most common gaps and All scored content, with Edit and View links, Fix and Remove from scan. Removed pages are listed under Excluded from the scan. See Citation Readiness.
- Store pages: see E-commerce.
- IndexNow: see IndexNow.
- AI fixing: connect an AI provider. See Connect an AI provider.
- Settings: turn each feature on or off, choose the Content types AI gets (see llms.txt and Markdown), exclude IP addresses from analytics (see AI Traffic Analytics) and set how long analytics data is kept.
Every list on this tab and on AI Analytics has a search box, sortable columns (click a column header; numbers sort largest first) and pagination.
FAQ #
Why is ChatGPT not citing my website? #
The most common technical reason is that OAI-SearchBot or ChatGPT-User is blocked by a firewall, CDN rule or robots.txt. Run the crawler access test to check. If both crawlers are reachable, the cause is usually the content: pages that do not answer the question directly or lack specific facts. The Citation Readiness score shows what to improve.
Does Cloudflare block AI crawlers? #
It can. Cloudflare has settings that block or challenge AI bots, and new Cloudflare sites may have them on by default. Check AI Crawl Control and the bot settings in your Cloudflare dashboard, then run the crawler access test again.
Does blocking GPTBot remove my site from ChatGPT search? #
No. GPTBot collects training data. ChatGPT search uses OAI-SearchBot, and live answers use ChatGPT-User, as listed in OpenAI’s crawler documentation. The plugin’s training crawler setting never blocks those two.
Why does the crawler test say Blocked when my site works in a browser? #
Your firewall, CDN or security plugin treats crawler user agents differently from browsers. Because the test request comes from your own server’s IP address, some CDN rules that allow verified crawler IPs may still let the real crawler through. Check the rule that blocked it before assuming the real crawler is blocked too.
What does “Disallowed in robots.txt” mean? #
Your robots.txt contains a rule that tells that crawler not to visit your site. Remove the rule for search and user crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, Googlebot, Bingbot) if you want to be cited.
