Monitoring Tools for SEO & GEO
An overview of the main tools to monitor your site's SEO and GEO: Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics 4, Ahrefs, Semrush, Cloudflare Radar, and more.
2026-02-20
Monitoring your site's performance in traditional search and in AI-powered systems requires a mix of official search tools, analytics platforms, and third-party SEO software. This page presents the main tools and what each one brings to SEO and GEO.
Google Search Console
What it is: Free tool by Google to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site's presence in Google Search. The most authoritative source for how Google sees and crawls your site.
URL: search.google.com/search-console
Key features for SEO & GEO:
| Feature | Use |
|---|---|
| Performance | Queries, impressions, clicks, CTR, position — and indirect signals of AI Overview impact (e.g. impressions up, CTR down). |
| Coverage | Index status: valid, excluded, error. Find orphan or blocked pages. |
| URL Inspection | How Googlebot last crawled a URL, robots.txt, rendering. |
| Core Web Vitals | Field data for LCP, INP, CLS (Good / Needs improvement / Poor). |
| Crawl stats | Requests by bot type, including Google-Extended (Gemini). Presence of Google-Extended indicates your content is considered for AI features. |
| robots.txt | View and test your robots.txt rules. |
| Manual Actions | Manual penalties (e.g. unnatural links, thin content). |
Setup (short): Add a property (prefer Domain), verify via DNS or meta tag, submit your sitemap. Enable email alerts.
GEO angle: Crawl stats show Google-Extended; Performance shifts can reflect AI Overviews answering queries that used to send clicks.
Bing Webmaster Tools
What it is: Microsoft's equivalent of Google Search Console for Bing. Essential for visibility in Bing and in Microsoft Copilot, which is powered by Bing.
URL: bing.com/webmasters
Key features:
- Submit sitemaps, inspect URLs, view search performance (queries, clicks, impressions).
- Index Explorer, keyword research, SEO reports.
- Backlink and crawl data.
Why use it for GEO: Copilot uses Bing’s index. Submitting your sitemap and keeping Bing healthy directly supports your presence in Copilot’s answers.
Setup: Add your site, verify (DNS, file, or meta tag), submit sitemap. Often similar verification options to GSC.
Google Analytics 4
What it is: Free analytics platform for user behavior: sessions, traffic sources, conversions, demographics. Complements search console data (which is about search performance, not on-site behavior).
URL: analytics.google.com
Key features for SEO & GEO:
- Traffic by source/medium (organic, referral, direct).
- Landing pages and user flows.
- Custom dimensions to segment AI crawler traffic (user-agent) when combined with your setup (see Tracking Agent Traffic).
- Events and conversions (newsletter, audit request, etc.).
Limitation: GA4 does not report “AI citation” as a metric; you infer agent impact via GSC + citation monitoring (see Monitoring Citations).
Ahrefs
What it is: Paid SEO suite: backlinks, keywords, site audits, rank tracking, content gap analysis.
URL: ahrefs.com
Key features:
| Feature | Use |
|---|---|
| Site Audit | Crawl errors, broken links, thin content, technical SEO issues. |
| Backlinks | Referring domains, anchor text, toxic links (for disavow). |
| Organic traffic / keywords | Estimated traffic and rankings by keyword. |
| Content Gap | Keywords competitors rank for that you don’t. |
GEO angle: Strong backlink profile and topical authority (reflected in Ahrefs) support both traditional SEO and likelihood of being cited by AI systems. Use for backlink audits and content strategy.
Pricing: Subscription (free trial available).
Semrush
What it is: All-in-one marketing and SEO platform: rankings, backlinks, site audit, advertising, content.
URL: semrush.com
Key features:
- Organic Research — Positions, traffic estimate, keywords.
- Backlink Analytics — Referring domains, anchor text, toxicity.
- Site Audit — Crawl health, Core Web Vitals, SEO issues.
- Position Tracking — Rankings over time.
- Content Marketing — Topic ideas, SEO writing assistant.
GEO angle: Similar to Ahrefs — authority and content quality metrics that correlate with both search and AI citation potential. Good for competitor and keyword gap analysis.
Pricing: Subscription (limited free tier).
Cloudflare Radar (AI Insights)
What it is: Free, public analytics on global and per-site traffic, including AI bot and crawler traffic. Unique visibility into how AI systems hit the web.
URL: radar.cloudflare.com — AI Insights
Key features:
- AI bot traffic — Share of requests from known AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, etc.) at global or per-bot level.
- Content type — Distribution of responses (e.g. HTML vs
text/markdown) served to AI bots when Markdown for Agents or similar is used. - Trends — How AI crawler traffic evolves over time.
GEO angle: Direct view of AI crawler activity. If you use Cloudflare (e.g. Markdown for Agents), Radar complements GSC/Bing by showing bot-level and content-type metrics.
Setup: No signup required for public Radar; for your own zone’s data, use Cloudflare and the dashboard/API.
Other tools worth knowing
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Moz (Link Explorer, Site Crawl) | Domain Authority, backlinks, crawl. Alternative to Ahrefs/Semrush. |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Desktop crawler for technical audits (broken links, titles, meta, structured data). Free up to 500 URLs. |
| Google Rich Results Test | Validate JSON-LD and see eligible rich result types. search.google.com/test/rich-results |
| IndexNow | Protocol to notify Bing and others of URL changes for faster indexing. indexnow.org |
Recommended setup for SEO & GEO
Minimum (free):
- Google Search Console — Property verified, sitemap submitted, Core Web Vitals and Coverage reviewed.
- Bing Webmaster Tools — Same: verify, submit sitemap (important for Copilot).
- Google Analytics 4 — Installed and configured; optionally segment or tag AI crawler traffic (see Tracking Agent Traffic).
Optional (paid):
- Ahrefs or Semrush — One of them for backlinks, site audit, and keyword/competitor insights.
- Cloudflare Radar — If you use Cloudflare, use Radar (and AI Insights) to monitor AI bot traffic and content types.
Ongoing:
- Review GSC Performance and Coverage regularly; fix errors and “Poor” Core Web Vitals.
- Check Bing for indexing and manual issues.
- Use GA4 to understand traffic and conversions; combine with GSC to interpret drops or shifts (e.g. AI Overview effect).
- Run periodic backlink and site audits (Ahrefs/Semrush or Moz) and act on toxic links or technical issues.
Quick checklist
- Google Search Console: property verified, sitemap submitted, alerts enabled
- Bing Webmaster Tools: site verified, sitemap submitted
- Google Analytics 4: installed and configured
- (Optional) Ahrefs or Semrush: backlink and site audit run
- (Optional) Cloudflare Radar / AI Insights reviewed if using Cloudflare
- Process in place to monitor citations (see Monitoring Citations)