SEO and GEO Audit Report for nerdwallet.com — Updated for 2026

Free combined SEO and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) audit for https://nerdwallet.com. This report scores on-page technical SEO, content quality, site structure, performance, AI readability, E-E-A-T authority, citations, and content freshness.

Summary

Overall SEO score: 69/100 (grade D). Overall GEO score: 88/100 (grade B). Combined visibility score: 79/100 (grade C). Report generated on July 2, 2026.

SEO category scores

Technical SEO: 70/100 — crawlability, indexability, HTTPS, robots.txt, sitemap.
Content quality: 69/100 — titles, meta descriptions, headings, alt text.
Site structure: 63/100 — internal linking, breadcrumbs, URL hygiene.
Performance: 71/100 — load time, TTFB, Core Web Vitals.

GEO category scores

AI readability: 73/100 — structured data, answer-first content, llms.txt, AI bot access.
Authority (E-E-A-T): 100/100 — author information, organization schema, credentials.
Citations: 86/100 — external sources, references, statistics.
Freshness: 100/100 — publication and modification dates.

What is GEO?

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing websites so AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews can discover, understand, and cite your content. Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking in search results, GEO focuses on citation readiness — clear structure, factual density, schema markup, and authority signals.

Top prioritized recommendations

Homepage blocked from indexing (critical): Remove the noindex directive from the robots meta tag.
AI crawlers blocked in robots.txt (critical): Allow AI crawlers (e.g. GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended) in robots.txt so generative engines can cite your site.
Many broken links (critical): Urgently fix broken links - they negatively impact SEO.
Homepage title too short (warning): Extend the title to 50-60 characters.
Pages without title (warning): Add unique titles to all pages.
Slow TTFB (warning): Optimize server, consider CDN.
Large page size (warning): Reduce HTML size.
Sentences too long (warning): Use shorter sentences (aim for 40–120 characters) for better AI and human readability.

Pages analyzed

This audit crawled 40 pages including the homepage and linked internal URLs.

Related resources

Author: project maintainer. Methodology published at https://seo-geo-reports.com/methodology. Last updated 2026.

HistoryPermanent result link

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This report uses an older scoring algorithm (v1.0)

The current version is v2.1.0. Re-run the audit to get results based on our latest checks and weights.

SEO-GEO

Website Analysis Report

Report generated on: July 2, 2026 at 08:25 PM

Analyzed Website

https://nerdwallet.com

Open site

SEO

69/100

GEO

88/100

Combined Score

C (79/100)

Recommendations

3 Critical5 Warnings7 Info15 Total

11 Quick wins4 Larger projects

Analysis time: 150925ms · Pages crawled: 40

Scoring algorithm v1.0· outdated

All Recommendations15

Quick wins (11)

Lower effort fixes you can ship quickly for a visible score boost.

warning[seo]

Homepage title too short

Title has only 27 characters.

Affected pages (1)

https://nerdwallet.com

💡 Extend the title to 50-60 characters.

warning[seo]

Pages without title

1 of 40 pages are missing a title.

Affected pages (1)

https://www.nerdwallet.com/prequalify/credit-cards/apply/credit-card-purpose

💡 Add unique titles to all pages.

warning[seo]

Slow TTFB

Average TTFB: 520ms.

💡 Optimize server, consider CDN.

warning[seo]

Large page size

Average HTML size: 1253KB.

💡 Reduce HTML size.

warning[geo]

Sentences too long

Average sentence length is 476 characters. 12 sentence(s) over 180 characters.

💡 Use shorter sentences (aim for 40–120 characters) for better AI and human readability.

info[seo]

Some pages missing canonical tag

2 of 40 pages are missing the canonical tag.

Affected pages (2)

💡 Add canonical tag to all pages.

info[seo]

Images without alt text

318 of 2530 images (13%) are missing alt attribute.

💡 Add descriptive alt text to all images.

info[seo]

Pages without H1 heading

2 of 40 pages are missing H1.

Affected pages (2)

💡 Add an H1 heading to each page.

info[seo]

Orphan pages found

1 pages have no links pointing to them.

Affected pages (1)

https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/news/cfpb-complaints

💡 Add links to these pages from other parts of the site.

info[seo]

Deep page structure

Some pages are 4 levels deep.

Affected pages (2)

💡 Try to keep the structure to 3 levels of depth.

info[geo]

Missing llms.txt

No llms.txt file found at the domain root. It provides AI models with a curated index of your most important content.

💡 Add an llms.txt file at the domain root linking to your key pages and a short site description.

Larger projects (4)

Higher-impact improvements that may need more development or content work.

critical[seo]

Homepage blocked from indexing

The robots meta tag contains 'noindex'.

Affected pages (1)

https://nerdwallet.com

💡 Remove the noindex directive from the robots meta tag.

critical[geo]

AI crawlers blocked in robots.txt

These AI crawlers are disallowed and cannot read or cite your content: Google-Extended.

💡 Allow AI crawlers (e.g. GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended) in robots.txt so generative engines can cite your site.

critical[seo]

Many broken links

Found 42 broken internal links.

Affected pages (2)

💡 Urgently fix broken links - they negatively impact SEO.

info[geo]

No quotations

Attributed quotations make passages more citable for AI engines.

💡 Add relevant quotations (<blockquote>) with clear attribution.

Executive Summary

SEO Categories

Category	Score
Technical SEO	C (70)
Content Quality	D (69)
Site Structure	D (63)
Performance	C (71)

GEO Categories

Category	Score
AI Readability	C (73)
Authority (E-E-A-T)	A (100)
Citations & Sources	B (86)
Content Freshness	A (100)

SEO Analysis Details

Technical SEO

Metric	Value
HTTPS/SSL	Yes
Mobile Friendly	Yes
Canonical Tags	No
Sitemap	No
Robots.txt	Yes
Hreflang	Yes
Broken Links	42

Content Quality

Metric	Value
Page Title	Yes (27 chars)
Meta Description	Yes (121 chars)
H1 Heading	Yes (1 found)
Heading Structure	Good
Avg Word Count	4228
Images Without Alt	318
Open Graph	Yes
Twitter Cards	Yes

Site Structure

Metric	Value
Internal Links	12583
External Links	629
Breadcrumbs	Yes
Max Depth	4 levels
Orphan Pages	1
Avg URL Length	59 chars

Performance

Metric	Value
Load Time	0.59s
TTFB	520ms
Page Size	1253 KB
Compression	Enabled
Caching	Enabled
Image Optimization	80/100

GEO Analysis Details

AI Readability

Metric	Value
Structured Data (JSON-LD)	Yes
Schema Types	BreadcrumbList, ListItem, NewsArticle, Thing, Person, EducationalOrganization, ImageObject, WebPage, Organization, PostalAddress, Country, VideoObject, FAQPage, Question, Answer, Article, SoftwareApplication, AggregateRating, Offer, Product, Brand
FAQ Schema	Yes
HowTo Schema	No
Article Schema	Yes
Table of Contents	Yes
Summary Section	Yes
Lists Count	1684
Tables Count	15
Content Clarity	65/100
Avg. sentence length	476 chars
Sentences (homepage)	66
Headings (H2/H3)	52
Max paragraph length	19090 chars
Answer-first sections	75%
Question-style headings	10

AI Crawler Access

Metric	Value
robots.txt present	Yes
llms.txt present	No
AI crawlers blocked	Google-Extended

Authority (E-E-A-T)

Metric	Value
Author Information	Yes
Author Schema	Yes
Organization Schema	Yes
About Page	Yes
Contact Information	Yes
Social Profiles	Yes
Credentials/Expertise	Yes
sameAs entity links	Yes

Citations & Sources

Metric	Value
External Links	629
Authority Site Links	50
References Section	Yes
Statistics/Data	219534
Quotes/Blockquotes	0

Content Freshness

Metric	Value
Publish Date	2026-07-02
Last Modified	Yes
Content Age	0 days
Mentions 2026	Yes
News Schema	Yes

AI Engine Readiness

How ready your site is to be cited by each major generative engine. Most GEO tactics help everywhere, but each engine has its own tilt.

ChatGPT

A (100)

✓OpenAI crawlers allowed (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot)
✓Structured data (JSON-LD) present
✓Sections lead with a direct answer
✓Strong authority signals (E-E-A-T)

ChatGPT search relies on Bing's index — make sure your site is indexed in Bing.

Perplexity

A (100)

✓PerplexityBot allowed
✓Content is fresh / recently updated
✓Concrete statistics and data
✓Cites external sources

Perplexity rewards recency and concrete, citable facts over marketing copy.

Google AI Overviews

E (50)

✗Strong classic SEO foundation
✗Google-Extended allowed
✓Structured data (JSON-LD) present
✓Sections lead with a direct answer

AI Overviews lean on pages that already rank well in classic Google Search.

Claude

C (75)

✓Anthropic crawlers allowed (ClaudeBot, anthropic-ai)
✗llms.txt present
✓Strong authority signals (E-E-A-T)
✓Sections lead with a direct answer

Claude favors well-structured, authoritative content and llms.txt for site discovery.

Gemini

E (50)

✗Google-Extended allowed
✓Structured data (JSON-LD) present
✓FAQ or HowTo schema
✗Strong classic SEO foundation

Gemini draws heavily from Google's index and structured, question-answer content.

All AI Crawlers

Status of every known AI crawler user-agent detected in your robots.txt analysis. Blocking a bot prevents that engine from reading and citing your content.

1 of 15 known AI crawlers are blocked in robots.txt.

User-agent	Provider	Access
GPTBot	OpenAI / ChatGPT	Allowed (default)
OAI-SearchBot	OpenAI / ChatGPT	Allowed (default)
ChatGPT-User	OpenAI / ChatGPT	Allowed (default)
PerplexityBot	Perplexity	Allowed (default)
Perplexity-User	Perplexity	Allowed (default)
ClaudeBot	Anthropic / Claude	Allowed (default)
Claude-Web	Anthropic / Claude	Allowed (default)
anthropic-ai	Anthropic / Claude	Allowed (default)
Google-Extended	Google / Gemini	Blocked
Applebot-Extended	Apple Intelligence	Allowed (default)
CCBot	Common Crawl	Allowed (default)
Amazonbot	Amazon	Allowed (default)
Bytespider	ByteDance	Allowed (default)
Meta-ExternalAgent	Meta AI	Allowed (default)
cohere-ai	Cohere	Allowed (default)

"Allowed (default)" means no bot-specific rule was found — the site follows the global User-agent: * policy.

How to Measure AI Citations

Classic keyword rankings no longer capture how often AI engines recommend you. Track citation rate — the share of your target questions where your brand is mentioned or linked in an AI answer.

Sample queries manually: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews the questions your customers ask, and record whether you are cited.
Track AI referral traffic in GA4: create a segment for referrals from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and similar AI domains.
Use a citation tracker: tools like Profound, Otterly or Peec automate citation-rate sampling across engines.
Re-run this report after changes: improving the signals above (crawler access, structured data, answer-first content, statistics, freshness) is what moves citation rate over time.

Crawled Pages40

Total pages analyzed: 40

https://nerdwallet.com
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/news/weekly-mortgage-rates-7-2-26
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/news/mortgage-rates-today-thursday-july-2-2026
https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/news/cfpb-complaints
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/news/mortgage-rates-today-wednesday-july-1-2026
https://www.nerdwallet.com/prequalify/m/credit-cards/lp1
https://www.nerdwallet.com/prequalify/credit-cards/apply/credit-card-purpose
https://www.nerdwallet.com/p/free-credit-score
https://www.nerdwallet.com/banking
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates/30-year-fixed
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates/5-1-arm
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates/fha
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates/va
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/best/mortgage-lenders
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/best/lenders-for-fha-loans
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/best/no-and-low-down-payment-lenders
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/best/va-mortgage-lenders
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/refinance-rates
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/best/refinance-lenders
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates/15-year-fixed
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/best/cash-out-refinance-lenders
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/best/heloc-lenders
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/top-mortgage-lenders
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/hubs/first-time-homebuyers
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/calculators/how-much-can-i-borrow
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/reviews
https://www.nerdwallet.com/home-ownership
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/learn/how-to-determine-home-value
https://www.nerdwallet.com/insurance/homeowners
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/calculators/mortgage-calculator
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/learn/how-much-down-payment-for-house
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/calculators/how-much-house-can-i-afford
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/calculators/closing-costs
https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/calculators/amortization
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/calculators/refinance-calculator
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/calculators/rent-vs-buy-calculator
https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/news

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