Free Google AI Mode Checker: See Who Gets Cited

A free check answers one question: for the searches your buyers run, which sites does Google AI Mode cite, and is yours one of them.

That sounds small. It is the number most teams lack. Google's own reporting does not give it to you, and AI Mode does not behave like the AI Overview on the same results page.

A good check gives you three things:

• A citation list per question. Every domain and URL AI Mode links as a source.
• A yes or no for your site. Cited, mentioned without a link, or absent.
• The competitors and third-party pages that win. Review sites, directories, forums and rivals that Google picks instead of you.

It does not give you a rank, a share of traffic or a forecast. It shows what Google showed on that day, for that query, in that location.

You need a browser, a spreadsheet and about 20 minutes for five questions.

1. Write 3 to 5 buyer questions. Use the words a customer would type, not your brand name. Say you run a dental clinic in Austin: "best dentist for implants in Austin" and "how much do dental implants cost in Austin".
2. Open a private browser window and stay signed out. This strips out most of your own search history and account context.
3. Go to google.com, enter the question and select the AI Mode tab. If you're outside a market where AI Mode is available, the tab won't appear.
4. Open the source links. Expand the link panel or source cards next to the answer. Record every cited URL, not just the first few.
5. Log each result in a sheet. Columns: date, question, location, cited domain, cited URL, whether your domain appears, and what the answer says about you.
6. Ask one follow-up. AI Mode is conversational. A second question ("which of these takes insurance?") often pulls new sources.
7. Run the same question as a normal search. Note whether an AI Overview appears and what it cites. Our AI Mode vs AI Overview comparison walks through doing both side by side.
8. Check your own eligibility. Search site:yourdomain.com/page-path to see whether the page is indexed, or use URL Inspection in Search Console.
9. Repeat on another day. One run is a snapshot. Two or three runs show which citations are stable.

Google states in its AI features documentation that AI Overviews and AI Mode "may use different models and techniques", so they can return different links for the same question. A page cited in one is not guaranteed a place in the other. If you only track one surface, you can miss half the picture. The AI Overview checker covers the other half.

The bigger reason is query fan-out. Google describes AI Mode as able to issue multiple related searches across subtopics, then build one answer from the results. Your buyer typed one question. Google may have run several.

That has two consequences:

• A cited page may not rank for the typed query. It may rank for a subtopic Google searched behind the scenes.
• You can't see the real queries. Google does not publish the fan-out searches it ran. Any checker, including a manual one, tests the question you chose, which is a proxy for the queries Google actually ran.

So treat a citation list as evidence of what Google trusts for a topic, not as a ranking for a keyword.

Sort your sheet by outcome. Each one points to a different next move.

Your page is cited

Read what the answer says next to the link. If it states a wrong price or an old product name, fix the fact on the cited page so it appears plainly in the HTML. Stating a specific fact on a fetchable page gives the engine a sentence it can quote. Our pricing accuracy check helps here.

Your page is not cited, competitors are

First rule out access problems. Google says a page must be "indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet" to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, with no additional technical requirements. Check for noindex, nosnippet, max-snippet:0 or data-nosnippet on the page. Any of these can keep content out of AI answers.

Also check whether a Search Console property has opted out of Google's generative AI features. Inclusion is the default, but a child property can inherit an opt-out from its parent, and nothing outside Search Console shows it.

Third-party pages are cited instead

When AI Mode cites review sites, directories or comparison posts, being named on those pages is the route into the answer. The evidence shows an association there, not a guaranteed effect. Our guide to getting cited in Google AI Mode covers what you control.

The index matters more than any tactic. In Otterly's 2026 experiment, Google deindexed two AI-generated sites, and Google's AI surfaces, including AI Mode, almost never cited them afterwards.

Be plain with your team about what this data can and cannot carry.

• No position exists. Search Console's generative AI report shows impressions for AI Overviews and AI Mode, broken down by page, country, date and device. It has no clicks, no CTR and no position. Any tool reporting an "AI Mode rank" has nothing to check that number against.
• Results vary. Location, language and timing change answers. Record where and when you ran each check.
• Cited is not the same as used. Research on attribution (arXiv 2606.28358) found citations can be repaired without changing the sources, so a citation count is a noisy proxy for influence.
• Nothing guarantees inclusion. Google says there are no special optimizations needed for AI Mode, and the 2026 critical survey of GEO studies (arXiv 2607.14035) found no technique with a stable, cross-platform effect on discoverability. Schema, llms.txt and rewriting for AI are not levers, as our review of citation studies explains.

What you control is access: an indexed page, snippet eligibility, no accidental suppression, and accurate facts in the HTML.

The manual method works, but it is slow once you track more than a handful of questions or run them weekly. 99Visibility's free Google AI Mode Checker runs a question in AI Mode and lists the cited sites, so you can see whether your domain is one without copying links by hand.

Use it the same way as the manual check: real buyer questions, results logged with a date, and a second run before you draw conclusions. To see which specific pages on your site earn citations across engines, pair it with the AI citation checker. For the wider strategy across both Google surfaces, read how to get cited in AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Does Search Console show my AI Mode citations? Partly. Search Console's generative AI performance report shows impressions for AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, country, date and device. It does not show clicks, CTR or position, and it doesn't list the competing sites cited alongside you. Google also confirmed a bug that depressed impressions from around 12 to 13 August 2026, so check any trend that spans that window before trusting it.

Can I block Google AI Mode with robots.txt? No. There is no robots.txt token for AI Mode or AI Overviews. Google treats Googlebot rules as the control, because AI features are built into Search. To keep specific content out of AI answers, use noindex, nosnippet, max-snippet or data-nosnippet on the page. Google-Extended governs Gemini Apps and training, not AI Mode.

Will adding schema or an llms.txt file get me cited in AI Mode? The evidence says no. Google's optimization guide says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special markup for its generative AI features, and that Search ignores llms.txt. Ahrefs' matched test found AI Mode citations rose only 2.4% after adding schema, with no major uplift on any platform. Existing markup does no harm, but it is not a lever.

How many questions should I check? Start with three to five questions your buyers actually ask, written in their words rather than your brand name. Run each one at least twice on different days. That is enough to see which citations are stable and which competitors or third-party pages keep appearing. Add questions once you know what you'll do with the answers.

Why does AI Mode cite a page that doesn't rank for my query? Google says AI Mode can use query fan-out, issuing several related searches across subtopics before writing one answer. A cited page may rank for one of those hidden searches rather than the query you typed. You can't see the fan-out queries, so judge citations by topic, not by a single keyword.