Free tool
Answerability checker
Paste an article or page copy and get a heuristic score for how well it is shaped like an answer: whether the first paragraph resolves the question directly, whether headings are phrased as questions, how long the paragraphs run, whether lists or tables are present, and whether concrete numbers appear. Answer engines lift content built like answers, and each check maps to a specific edit.
Why shape decides who gets cited
Generative engines answer questions by retrieving passages and assembling them, which quietly rewards pages built from liftable units: a direct opening answer, headings that mirror real questions, short paragraphs, tables and specific figures. The strongest evidence is the GEO study from Princeton, Georgia Tech, IIT Delhi and the Allen Institute, presented at KDD 2024, which tested nine optimization methods across 10,000 queries and found that adding statistics, quotations and citations improved visibility in generative engine responses by up to 40 percent.
The pattern shows up in the wild too: content that answers in the first paragraph gets quoted whole, while pages that clear their throat for three hundred words get skipped for a competitor who simply said the thing.
How to read your score
Each check is an edit instruction. A weak opening means rewriting the first paragraph to answer the title's question in two or three sentences, leading with the strongest number you have. Statement headings can usually be flipped into the question a buyer would ask. Paragraphs past five or six lines want splitting, and a wall of prose comparing options is begging to become a table.
The missing-numbers flag is the highest-value one, given the GEO findings. Pull real figures from your own data or from cited research, and attribute them, because an unsourced statistic reads as decoration to careful readers and careful engines alike.
Honest limits
This is a heuristic scored from text alone. It cannot see the things that also decide citations: your domain's authority, who links to you, whether your claims are accurate, or whether anyone actually asks the question your page answers. A perfectly shaped page on a question nobody asks scores well and earns nothing.
Shape is the part you control this afternoon. Whether it worked is a separate measurement: ask the engines your buyers' questions and see who gets named. Reachroller does that continuously, tracking whether ChatGPT mentions your brand, with a free 3-day trial from $29 a month.
Frequently asked questions
What does the score actually measure?+
Five structural traits: a direct answer in the first paragraph, question-form headings, paragraph length, the presence of lists or tables, and concrete numbers in the text. It measures shape rather than quality, so treat it as a checklist of edits, and keep responsibility for whether the answer itself is true and useful.
What is the fastest way to raise a low score?+
Rewrite the first paragraph so it answers the page's core question in two or three sentences with a specific, attributed number. That single edit moves the most checks at once, and it targets the pattern with the best evidence behind it: the GEO study found statistics and citations lifted generative visibility by up to 40 percent.
Do question-form headings really matter?+
They help in two ways. Retrieval systems match questions to passages, and a heading phrased exactly like the buyer's question is an easy match with the paragraph below it as the extractable answer. They also force discipline on the writer, since a heading that asks something obligates the next paragraph to answer it.
Is a high score a guarantee of AI citations?+
No. Shape makes your content easy to lift, while authority, accuracy, freshness and actual question demand decide whether engines reach for it at all. Use a high score as clearance to move on to the harder work: earning mentions on the sources engines already trust and tracking which questions your brand appears on.
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