Questions and answers
Everything people ask about the checker, the scores and the scanner. Type to narrow it down, or pick a subject.
Showing all 23 questions.
Using the checker
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Is it really free?
Yes. No account, no email needed to see your results, and no trial that expires. We built it because the report is the best introduction to what Lightmorphic does. If you want help acting on it, that's where we come in; if not, the report is yours either way.
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Do I need to sign up or give an email address?
No. You enter a domain and get the report on screen. There is an option to email yourself a copy, but it is entirely optional and the report is complete without it.
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Does it matter where my business is based?
No. Any site, in any country, on any domain ending. Everything we score is about how machines read your site, and that works the same everywhere. We check that your site declares the language it is written in and sticks to it, rather than treating any one country's spelling as the correct one.
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Can I scan a site I don't own?
Please only scan sites you own or have permission to check. Nothing we do is invasive - it reads public pages exactly as a visitor would - but the report is written for someone who can act on it.
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How long does a scan take?
Usually well under a minute. We read your homepage plus a small number of key pages, with a strict time budget for the whole scan, so it finishes even when a site is slow.
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Why was my scan refused?
There are a handful of honest reasons and we always say which: the domain doesn't exist, the site didn't respond, it actively blocks automated checkers, or it asked us to log in. We also decline to scan this tool itself and admin panels.
Your scores
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What do the two scores actually mean?
Site Health covers the technical basics a search engine cares about: indexability, speed signals, mobile setup, HTTPS, titles, sitemaps and accessibility. AI Readiness covers whether AI assistants can reach, read and quote your site. A site can score well on one and badly on the other.
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How are the scores calculated?
Every check is worth a fixed number of points and returns a green, amber or red result, earning all, some or almost none of them. Your percentage is the points earned out of the points available. AI Readiness is out of 105 across eleven checks; Site Health is out of 87 across eleven.
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Why did my score change between scans?
Some checks are a snapshot. Speed depends on how your server felt at that moment, and content checks change as your site changes. Big swings usually mean something real changed; small ones are normal.
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What is a good score?
Treat anything green as done and spend your time on the reds, worst first - the report is ordered that way deliberately. Chasing the last few points is rarely worth it compared with fixing one red.
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Why is one check worth far more than another?
Weight follows consequence. Crawler access is worth 20 because blocking AI crawlers makes every other AI check irrelevant. An llms.txt file is worth 5 because it helps, but nothing breaks without it.
AI visibility
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What are SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO is being found in a list of links. AEO, answer engine optimisation, is being the answer someone is shown instead of a list. GEO, generative engine optimisation, is being quoted accurately when an assistant writes prose about your subject. The same site can do well at one and badly at the others.
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Which AI assistants does this affect?
The ones people actually ask: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot and Gemini. We check your robots.txt against their crawlers by name, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended.
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Should I block AI crawlers?
That is genuinely your decision and we don't judge it. Blocking protects your content from being used for training; it also means assistants cannot recommend you. Most small businesses that block them did so by accident and are surprised to find out.
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My site looks fine to me - why does it say AI tools can't read it?
Almost always because the text arrives via JavaScript. Your browser runs those scripts; most AI crawlers do not. They receive the empty shell the server sent. Nothing in your analytics will show you this.
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What is llms.txt?
A small plain-text file at the root of your site offering AI tools a clear summary of what you do. It is a young convention and not yet universally read, which is why it carries few points - but it lets you write your own description instead of leaving one to be inferred.
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Will fixing these things guarantee I show up in ChatGPT?
No, and be wary of anyone who promises that. These checks remove the obstacles that reliably keep you out and add the signals that help you be understood. Whether an assistant mentions you also depends on your reputation and what else exists on the subject.
Our scanner
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What is LightmorphicVitalsBot?
The scanner behind this tool. It identifies itself honestly in your logs and only visits when somebody has asked for a scan of that exact domain. It never crawls continuously or site-wide.
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Will scanning affect my website?
No. It reads your homepage plus a handful of key pages once, the way any visitor or search engine would, with strict limits on how much it fetches. It never fills in forms, never tries to log in, and repeat scans come from a short-lived cache.
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How do I block it?
Add a robots.txt rule disallowing LightmorphicVitalsBot and it will stop immediately - we respect that, and a scan of a site that refuses us reports exactly that and goes no further.
Privacy and data
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Do you use cookies or track me?
No cookies, no trackers, no analytics that follow you. There is nothing to consent to, which is why you have not seen a banner.
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What do you store about a scan?
The report itself, so repeat scans of the same domain can be served from a short-lived cache rather than hammering the site again. IP addresses are only ever kept hashed, and only to enforce daily limits.
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What happens to my email if I ask for the report?
It is used to send you that report. There is an optional newsletter tick-box, off by default, and it is genuinely optional.
Still stuck?
If your question is about a particular check and what it is really asking for, the guide to all 22 checks goes through each one. If it is about the scanner appearing in your logs, about our scanner bot covers that. Anything else, email vitals@lightmorphic.com.