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How we built the AI Visibility Inspector, our free page scanner

ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity read your raw HTML. They do not run JavaScript, and many sites show them almost nothing. We kept explaining this in audits, so we built a scanner anyone can point at a page: paste a URL, see exactly what the machines get. This is the system behind it.

Published July 2026 by Balázs Turán, Creative Data Engineers.

What we built
  • A free scanner at /ai-search-visibility/inspector: paste any URL, no account, and see what AI engines read from it.
  • Two fetches per scan: the raw HTML the way GPTBot reads it, and a JavaScript render for comparison. The gap between the two is the story.
  • An honest free snapshot: AI-readiness grade, share-card preview, issue list, and the full meta-tag table, all open. The Schema.org report opens with an email; the complete scan lands in the inbox after a one-click confirm.
  • Deterministic by design. The scan is rules against page-type expectations, so the same page always gets the same grade.
Why we built it

The most useful audit finding fits on one screen

Every AI Search Visibility audit we run starts with the same reveal: what the AI crawler receives is a different page from the one you see in your browser. Meta tags missing, schema absent, or a JavaScript shell with no content at all. Showing that gap on one screen convinces faster than any slide deck, so we turned the first mile of the audit into a tool anyone can run.

And yes, openly: the Inspector is also how we meet people. Someone scans a page, sees real gaps, and some of them want the full picture across their whole site. That is the funnel, and we would rather show it than pretend the tool fell from the sky. The free scan has to be genuinely useful on its own, or the whole thing is bait. That constraint shaped most of the decisions below.

The system

From pasted URL to full scan, end to end

Four stages: you drop in a URL, we scan it the way AI crawlers do, you get a free snapshot, and if you want the depth, the full scan comes by email after a one-click confirm. Then you fix, and scan again.

Your move Our pipeline Signals we read

Hover or focus any box for a plain-language explanation.

A You drop in a URL One page address, no account needed YOU START Your page URL paste any page, no signup we scan it B We scan it the way AI crawlers do Raw fetch first, then a JavaScript render for comparison read grade OUR ENGINE Load the live page raw fetch, then JS render SIGNALS Read the signals meta, schema, robots YOUR SCORE Grade it 0 to 100, plus the gaps your free snapshot C The free snapshot Grade, preview, issues and the full meta table, no email needed FREE Share-card preview LinkedIn, Slack, AI citations FREE Grade, issues, meta open, no email needed GATED Schema report, locked an email opens it email to open the full scan D The full scan Email opens the schema report; confirming delivers the scan to your inbox one click then it lands YOUR MOVE Enter your email the blur comes off right away YOUR MOVE Confirm the link double opt-in, one click DELIVERED Full scan in your inbox every gap, with the fix make the fixes, then scan again

Under the hood: the page itself is static HTML with a small script, the scan runs on our rendered-fetch engine behind an edge function, and a spam check plus a daily cap of 5 free scans keep it fair. Every scan stores the URL and its results; your IP address is stored only as an anonymous hash, never raw.

What it looks like

We scanned our own homepage, live

These are real screenshots of the Inspector scanning creative-data-engineers.com, the scan on record from July 2026. We dogfood the tool on our own site, and we publish the result either way: this one came back 100/100 with one meta note left open.

The AI Visibility Inspector scan form with a URL pasted in, above the note that scans are free, capped daily, and logged with an anonymous IP hash
One field, one button. No account. The fine print under the form says out loud what gets logged.
Scan result for creative-data-engineers.com: AI-readiness grade 100 of 100 next to the share-card preview built from the page's real Open Graph tags
The grade and the share card, free. The preview is built from the page's real tags, the same way LinkedIn, Slack, and AI citations build theirs.
Rendering and crawler-access rows: the page is server-rendered and GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot may all read it; the issue list reports no blocking issues
The two questions that decide everything: is the content in the raw HTML, and are AI crawlers allowed in.
The meta-tag table of the free snapshot: title, description, canonical and Open Graph rows all present, each with an expandable what-this-is-and-how-to-fix-it explanation
The full meta table, open in the free view. Every row expands into a plain what, why, and fix.
What we learned

Three decisions that make it hold up

1

The free tier has to be worth using on its own. The grade, the issue list, and the complete meta table are open with no email. The gate holds back depth (the schema report and the emailed scan), never the verdict. A teaser that hides the answer is bait; a teaser that gives the answer earns the follow-up.

2

Consent is split, and the checkbox starts unticked. An email entered for a scan is consent for that scan and follow-ups about that page. The fortnightly newsletter is a separate choice with its own checkbox, off by default. One address book, two consent scopes, and the sender respects the difference on every send.

3

No AI inside the scan. The grade comes from rules compared against page-type expectations, so the same page always scores the same. A tool that measures your AI readiness should itself be repeatable and auditable; a model guessing a score would be neither.

FAQ

Questions we get about the Inspector

Is the AI Visibility Inspector free?

Yes, up to 5 scans a day. The grade, the share-card preview, the issue list, and the full meta-tag table are open right away. The Schema.org report opens when you enter your email, and the complete scan arrives in your inbox after a one-click confirm.

What does the Inspector actually check?

It fetches your page the way an AI crawler does and reads what is really in the HTML: title, description, canonical, Open Graph and Twitter tags, every Schema.org block, whether AI crawlers are allowed in by robots.txt, and whether the page needs JavaScript to show its content. The result is graded against what AI engines expect for that page type.

Is there AI inside the scan?

No. The scan itself is deterministic: rules compared against page-type expectations. Scan the same page twice and you get the same grade. That keeps every result repeatable and auditable, which matters more for trust than a clever one-off answer.

Why give the scanner away for free?

One page is the first mile of the work we sell. The free scan shows the gap on a single URL; the paid AI Search Visibility audit covers every page of a site and measures whether AI engines actually name the brand when buyers ask generic industry questions. People who find real gaps in the free scan tend to want the full picture.

Try it on your own page

The Inspector is live and free. Paste a URL and see what AI engines read from it in about half a minute. If the gaps run deeper than one page, that is what the full audit is for.

Related builds: the AI-search radar that watches this space for us, and the newsletter system the Inspector's double opt-in plugs into. We also teach operators to build systems like this, hands-on. Balázs runs the build sessions at Agent-J+.