Most Hong Kong enterprises have never measured whether ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overview can actually read their website. They have SEO reports going back years. They have Google Analytics dashboards nobody opens. They have no number at all for the channel their buyers increasingly use first.
That gap is not expensive to close. It is a 30-second scan, and it costs nothing. The harder question is what you do with the result, and this page answers both.
What is an AEO scan, and what does it measure?
An AEO scan measures whether AI answer engines can find, parse and quote your website. It checks structural signals such as schema markup, AI crawler access and heading consistency, alongside copy signals such as citations and answerability. The output is a visibility score plus a ranked list of fixes, not a traffic forecast.
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. SEO targets Google rankings and clicks. AEO targets whether your content gets quoted as the answer, even when no click ever happens.
The distinction matters commercially. A brand can rank third on Google and be entirely absent from the ChatGPT answer that shortlisted three vendors for your buyer.
What does the UDomain AEO Auditor free scan include?
The free scan returns four modules: an overall AI Visibility Score, AEO copy signals, structural checks across the site, and a prioritised action plan. It evaluates the site against major AI engines including ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini. No consultation call is required to see the report.
What the scan covers
--- AI Visibility Score — a single number benchmarked against an industry comparison, so the result is interpretable without an analyst.
--- AEO standards checks — over 170 structural checks across the scanned pages, including JSON-LD schema coverage, internal linking and heading consistency.
--- AEO copy signals — whether the writing itself is quotable: citations and sources present, conversational answerability, self-contained claims.
--- Platform presence — where the brand does and does not appear across the surfaces AI systems draw on.
--- Action plan — findings ranked high, medium and low, with the expected score impact of each fix.
The demo report published on the AEO Auditor page shows the actual format, including the 172-point standards breakdown, so you can judge the depth before entering a URL.
How much does it cost, and is a credit card required?
The scan is free. There is no credit card, no account creation and no trial that converts into a paid plan. An email address is used only to display the full dashboard and to offer optional follow-up analysis. There are no charges and no automatic billing attached to the free scan.
The commercial terms in one place
--- Price: HK$0. The scan itself carries no fee and no usage limit disclosed at signup.
--- Card required: No.
--- Account required: No. A URL is enough to generate the report.
--- What email unlocks: the full interactive dashboard and optional deeper analysis.
--- What happens when it ends: nothing. There is no expiring trial period to manage, and re-scanning monthly is the recommended cadence.
--- What is paid: the consultant engagement that implements the fixes. That is scoped and quoted separately.
For a comparison of what commercial AEO platforms charge once you get past the diagnostic stage, see our earlier analysis of AEO tool pricing and whether you need one yet.
How long does the scan take, and how long until results move?
Most sites produce a full interactive dashboard in under 30 seconds, with complex sites taking up to 60 seconds. Acting on the findings runs on a much slower clock: structural changes are typically re-crawled by AI engines within two to four weeks, while citation and authority signals accumulate over one to three months.
Treat those two timelines as separate budget lines.
The scan is a same-meeting artefact. You can run it before a planning session and bring the score into the room.
The remediation is a quarter, not a sprint. Any vendor promising AI visibility gains in two weeks is describing the crawl cycle, not the outcome.
What the free scan cannot do
The free scan is a diagnostic, not a remediation. It tells you which structural and copy signals are failing and in what order to fix them. It does not edit your site, write your schema, produce the content that earns citations, or guarantee that any specific AI engine will name your brand.
Where the limits sit
--- It does not fix anything. The action plan is a to-do list for your team or a scope for a consultant.
--- It is a point-in-time snapshot. AI engines refresh on their own cadence, which is why monthly re-scanning is recommended rather than optional.
--- Score movement is not revenue. A higher visibility score raises the probability of citation. It does not promise pipeline, and no honest tool can.
--- Consulting pricing is not published. If the fixes require outside help, that cost is quoted per scope rather than listed on the page. Ask for it early if budget approval is your constraint.
--- It is one of several free options. Tools such as SolCrys and DerivateX also offer free AI-visibility checks, and commercial platforms including Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.ai and the Semrush AI Toolkit compete in the paid tier. Running two free scans and comparing is a reasonable, and cheap, sanity check.
Should you run it before budgeting for an AEO platform?
Yes, in almost every case. A free diagnostic that costs nothing and takes 30 seconds removes the main reason AEO budget requests fail at the CFO stage, which is the absence of a baseline number. Run the scan, record the score, then decide whether the gap justifies a platform subscription or a consultant.
The right next step by buyer type
--- You have never measured AI visibility. Run the free scan. Do not buy anything yet. You cannot size a problem you have not measured.
--- You have a score and it is weak on structure. Structural fixes such as schema and internal linking are the fastest wins and often do not need a subscription at all.
--- You have a score and it is weak on citations. This is a content and authority problem measured in quarters. Budget for content, not tooling.
--- You need to track competitors continuously. This is where a paid monitoring platform starts to earn its fee. A one-off scan will not serve you.
--- You need board approval first. Bring the score and the industry comparison. A number with a benchmark survives a budget meeting; an argument about AI trends does not.
The correct next step
The decision in front of you is not which AEO platform to buy. It is whether you are willing to keep operating without a baseline for a channel your buyers already use to build shortlists.
A free 30-second scan settles that. What it produces is a defensible number, an industry comparison and a ranked action plan, which is exactly the evidence a budget conversation needs. Whether you then implement in-house or bring in help is a separate decision, and one you will make better with the data in hand.
We understand AI. We understand you. With UD by your side, AI never feels cold.
Reviewed by the UD enterprise AI team.
Run your scan
Start with the number. The free AEO Auditor scan returns your AI Visibility Score, over 170 structural checks and a ranked action plan in about 30 seconds, with no credit card and no account. If the results call for implementation, we'll walk you through every step, from schema and structure to citation strategy and monthly tracking.
