How to check your Gemini visibility (free tool)
Checking Gemini visibility means testing the full grounding pipeline: whether Google indexes you, whether the Google-Extended token permits Gemini to use you, and whether your pages carry passages Gemini can quote. A rankings report cannot see most of that. Here is the step-by-step process, plus a free structured audit.
Key takeaway: Gemini grounds its answers in Google Search, so a Gemini visibility check has to cover three layers a normal SEO audit skips: generative permission (Google-Extended), snippet eligibility, and quotable answer-first structure. You can test recommendation behaviour manually in the Gemini app, but the blockers live in robots.txt and your page structure. The free Gemini Visibility Checker inspects every layer in about 60 seconds.
Why a Google rankings report cannot answer this
Because Gemini grounds on Google, businesses assume a strong Google ranking guarantees a mention. It does not, for two structural reasons.
First, the Google-Extended trap. Google indexes your site with Googlebot, but whether your content may be used in generative answers is governed by a separate robots.txt token, Google-Extended. Blocking it does not touch your Search ranking, so your positions look untouched while Gemini quietly stops using you.
Second, ranking is necessary but not sufficient. Grounding pulls candidate pages, then Gemini cites only the few it can quote cleanly: the ones with a liftable claim, a resolvable entity and the E-E-A-T signals Google already trusts. A rankings report shows green while Gemini stays silent. That is exactly the gap a Gemini-specific check exists to expose.
Step 1: ask Gemini what a buyer would ask
Open the Gemini app or gemini.google.com and run the questions your customers actually ask:
- “What can you tell me about [your company name]?”
- “What are the best [product or service category] options in [location or niche]?”
- “Recommend a [type of business] for [specific need].”
For each answer, record whether your brand is named, whether the description is accurate, which sources Gemini cites, and which competitors appear instead of you. Repeat the questions in a fresh session; grounded answers vary, so one absence proves little but a consistent pattern is a real signal.
Step 2: confirm you are in Google’s index
Grounding retrieves from Google’s index, so index inclusion is the entry ticket. Search Google for site:yourdomain.com and check your key pages appear. Then check Google Search Console for coverage errors on the pages you most want cited. If Googlebot cannot crawl or render a page, Gemini has nothing to ground on, and no amount of content work fixes that.
Step 3: check the Google-Extended token
Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for:
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
If that block is present, your content is opted out of training and grounding Google’s generative models, Gemini included, while your Search rankings stay untouched. This is the single most common accidental way sites disappear from Gemini: “block AI” plugin defaults and CDN toggles added it to a huge number of sites without anyone deciding to leave Gemini. If you find it and want Gemini visibility, remove it or scope it deliberately.
Step 4: check your snippet controls
Snippet controls (nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet) limit how much of your text Google may show, and they also govern what can be lifted into AI Overviews, the Gemini-powered summary at the top of Search. Check your page source and HTTP headers for these directives. Set too tight, they let you rank while giving Google nothing it is permitted to quote.
Step 5: test whether your pages are quotable
Grounding chooses the source it can extract a crisp sentence from. For each key page, ask: is there a direct, self-contained answer in the first paragraph? Are the H2s phrased as real questions? Can a single sentence be lifted that names you and answers the query? Across 850,000+ sites in the SAVI Report (April 2026), average on-page structure scores just 23.1/100; most ranking pages fail this test, which is why they are retrieved but never cited.
Step 6: run the structured audit
The free Gemini Visibility Checker automates all of the above on any URL: whether Googlebot can crawl and render you, whether Google-Extended is allowed, whether you are retrievable enough to be a grounding candidate, whether your entity resolves cleanly through schema and Knowledge Graph presence, and whether your pages carry answer-first passages Gemini can lift verbatim. About 60 seconds, no signup, ranked fix list at the end.
Then run it on the competitor Gemini keeps recommending instead of you. The gap between the two scores is usually the clearest brief you will ever get for what to fix first.
How to read your results
Separate the two failure modes before spending effort:
- “Google can’t reach or use you.” Not indexed, trapped behind JavaScript, Google-Extended disallowed, or snippet-suppressed. High impact, often a one-line fix, and it caps everything else.
- “Google can use you but Gemini won’t cite you.” Retrievable, but nothing liftable: buried answers, weak entity data, thin E-E-A-T. Slower to move, but this is what separates being in the candidate pool from being named.
The good news is that Gemini optimisation and classic Google work reinforce each other: the trust signals Google already rewards are the same ones grounding leans on. Nothing you fix for Gemini is wasted on Search.
How often should you re-check?
Re-run the check after every batch of fixes, then monthly: Google’s index moves, models update and competitors publish. For continuous measurement, SearchScore’s Tracker puts real prompts to six live engines every week, Gemini included, and counts exactly how often each one cites you, with a dedicated Gemini column. You see your citation footprint move instead of guessing from one-off spot checks.
What does a good result look like?
Read your score against the population. Across the 850,000+ websites in the SAVI Report (April 2026 edition), the average AI Visibility score is 34.1/100, average on-page structure is 23.1/100, and only 0.2% of sites score as fully AI-Ready. Technical foundations average 70.1/100 across the same dataset: the sites are built fine, they are semantically invisible. If your technical score is high and your citability score is low, you are looking at the classic Gemini gap, ranked but never quoted.
The pattern shows up wherever SearchScore has audited whole sectors. Across 1,038 UK accountancy firms, 97% were crawlable yet only 18 (1 in 60) covered all five AI-readiness basics, and 150+ London firms averaged 52.8/100. Reachable is not the same as recommended; a Gemini check exists to measure the second thing.
Related articles
- How Gemini decides which websites to cite →
- Why your website isn’t showing up in Gemini →
- Google AI Overviews: the complete guide →
- Free search visibility tools and checkers →
Sources & Further Reading
- SearchScore SAVI Report, April 2026 (850,000+ sites)
- Google Developers – Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Schema.org – Organisation structured data reference
Frequently asked questions
Can I check Gemini visibility just by asking Gemini?
Partially. Manual prompts show whether you are recommended today, but they cannot tell you why you are absent: a blocked Google-Extended token, a rendering problem and an unquotable page all look identical from the chat window. Pair manual testing with a structured audit that inspects the underlying controls.
Why am I in Google's index but not in Gemini's answers?
The usual causes, in order: Google-Extended is disallowed in robots.txt; your pages carry no answer-first passage Gemini can lift; your entity is ambiguous, so Gemini cannot confidently attach a claim to your brand; or stronger E-E-A-T sources cover the same question. Why your website isn't showing up in Gemini works through each fix.
Does checking Gemini also cover Google AI Overviews?
They share foundations: AI Overviews are produced by a custom Gemini model grounded in the same Search index, so index inclusion and quotable structure help both. But AI Overviews have extra mechanics, snippet eligibility and query fan-out, covered in the Google AI Overviews guide.
Should I test in the Gemini app or in Google Search?
Both, because they are different surfaces of the same grounded model. The Gemini app shows you conversational recommendations, the kind a buyer gets when they ask an assistant directly. Google Search shows you AI Overviews, the summary that intercepts your existing search traffic. They share the index and most of the fixes, but the Overview adds snippet eligibility and query fan-out to the test, so a brand can appear in one and not the other. Baseline both, then track whichever your customers use most.