GEO tools: the five free ones worth using
By David Quaid Published
The five free GEO tools worth using first are Google Search Console, GA4, Bing Webmaster Tools, Microsoft Clarity and Gemini. Between them they show where AI answers cite you, what they searched to find you, and what AI visitors do once they land. GEO is SEO with a new scoreboard, so you already own most of the kit.
GEO tools at a glance
These five GEO tools cover the three questions that matter: are you cited, are you visited, and what is the assistant searching for.
| Tool | What it shows for GEO | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions inside Performance, plus its generative AI report | Free |
| GA4 | Visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, copilot.microsoft.com and claude.ai | Free |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Copilot and Bing AI citations, cited pages, grounding queries, opportunity queries | Free |
| Microsoft Clarity | AI referrals as their own channel, with session recordings of what those visitors do | Free |
| Gemini | The answer and sources Google's own assistant gives for your buyers' questions | Free |
How to use each GEO tool
Each GEO tool answers a different part of the job, so use them together.
In Search Console, compare the pages getting AI impressions with the pages ranking on page one for the same queries; you will see a lot of overlap. In GA4, start with the AI Assistant channel Google added to the Default Channel Group on May 13, 2026, then build a custom channel group with a regex for the AI referrers above, so the visits that channel misses stop hiding inside Referral. Bing Webmaster Tools is the only report that shows the grounding queries an assistant used to find you, and its Topics Portfolio lists opportunity queries where you could be cited and are not. Clarity has split AI traffic into its own channel since August 2025, and watching a few recordings tells you whether those visitors found what the answer promised. Then ask Gemini the questions your buyers ask and note which pages it sources.
What the free GEO tools leave out
The free GEO tools leave out ChatGPT's searches and citations, because OpenAI reports nothing to site owners.
That is the gap our Fan-Out tool fills: it shows the searches ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini run and where you rank for each. For the paid trackers too, see our list of the best GEO tools.
Free tools for this guide
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Fan-Out
The searches AI engines actually run
Open the query fan-out tool