Which audit to use
Site audit vs SEO analyzer vs Complete URL audit vs AEO checker: what each scores and costs.
In shortAI Rank Lab has six audits for six jobs. Site audit crawls a whole site for technical SEO issues. SEO analyzer checks single pages quickly. Complete URL audit builds a graded, shareable deep report on one URL. The AEO and GEO checker scores one page for AI readiness. Core Web Vitals measures speed with PageSpeed Insights. E-com AEO and GEO scores product pages for AI shopping answers. Their scores use different formulas, so never compare them across tools.
Why there are six audits
"Audit my site" can mean very different things. A developer wants every broken link and missing canonical across 400 pages. A content lead wants to know whether one article is ready for AI answers. An agency wants a polished report to send a prospect. A store owner wants to know why ChatGPT never recommends their product. One tool can't do all of that well, so each audit is built for one job.
The first five in the table sit under SEO → Audits in the sidebar. The AEO and GEO checker sits under AI search, because its main job is AI readiness.
The six audits side by side
| Audit | What it checks | Scope | What you get | How it's priced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site audit | Status codes, indexability, canonicals, titles, meta, headings, duplicates, thin content, images, links, schema and more | Whole site, crawled from the sitemap and home page | URL-by-URL table, filters, issue counts, CSV export | Per page crawled |
| SEO analyzer | Title, meta, headings, images, links with broken-link checks, schema, content, security, social tags, robots and sitemap | One URL, or a bulk list | SEO, AEO, GEO and overall scores with recommendations, CSV export | Per URL, charged up front |
| Complete URL audit | On-page SEO, GEO and AI signals, rankings, backlinks, usability, PageSpeed, performance, technology, DNS email checks | One URL | Letter grades, a branded PDF and a public share link | Per URL |
| AEO and GEO checker | SEO, answer-engine and generative-engine readiness, with findings and quick wins | One URL (bulk scans also exist) | The AI audit report; also feeds Progress reports | Per URL |
| Core Web Vitals | Google PageSpeed Insights: performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO scores, LCP, CLS and lab timings | Discovered URLs of your domain, mobile and desktop | Score cards, history, filmstrip and layout shifts per URL | Per URL (mobile and desktop together) |
| E-com AEO and GEO | AI crawler access, Product schema, fact density, structure, FAQ and Q&A, ratings and reviews | One product page | A score out of 100, per-engine scores, fixes, PDF and share link | Per product URL |
Pick by the question you're asking
- "What's technically broken across my site?" Use Site audit.
- "Is this one page set up properly?" Use the SEO analyzer. It's quick, and bulk mode handles up to 50 URLs at once.
- "I need a report to send a client or a prospect." Use the Complete URL audit. It's the only one with letter grades, rankings and backlink data in the same report.
- "Will AI engines understand and cite this page?" Use the AEO and GEO checker. Run it again after your changes and compare both in Progress reports.
- "Is my site fast enough?" Use Core Web Vitals.
- "Why doesn't ChatGPT recommend my product?" Use E-com AEO and GEO on the product page.
Scores don't compare across tools
Each audit has its own scoring formula. The SEO analyzer's AEO and GEO scores use a simple rule-based formula. The AEO and GEO checker uses a separate scoring engine plus AI-written insights. The Complete URL audit grades sections from A to F. Core Web Vitals scores come straight from Google's Lighthouse. A page can score 82 in one tool and 64 in another and both can be right.
Track progress by running the same audit on the same page before and after a change. Don't report "our score went from 64 to 82" if the two numbers came from different tools.
Gotchas to know before you spend credits
- Some audits keep the credits when a page can't be fetched. The SEO analyzer and E-com AEO and GEO charge up front and don't refund a blocked or timed-out fetch. A blocked page can even come back as a completed, low-scoring report. Check the URL loads in a private window first.
- A thin report still costs the full price. The Complete URL audit refunds only if the whole audit breaks, not when one data source (for example backlinks or PageSpeed) comes back empty.
- Pages built in the browser score low in some tools. E-com AEO and GEO and the SEO analyzer read the raw HTML without running JavaScript, so content added by scripts can look missing.
- Site audit charges as it crawls. A large site uses one charge per page until the crawl ends, you stop it, or your balance runs out.
- Core Web Vitals may find nothing to scan on a new domain. It tests a list of pages discovered earlier, and nothing in the dashboard builds that list today. You'll see "No URLs found to scan" and nothing is charged.
Reading any report you already have is free. Credits are spent only when you start an audit, and the price is shown first.
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