Run your first scan

A scan is VisibleMax’s end-to-end pipeline: crawl your site, analyze structural and entity signals, probe buyer prompts across AI platforms, and (on eligible plans) produce discovery outputs such as the weekly plan. Most first reports complete in about two minutes.

How to start a scan

1. 1

   Confirm your project URL

   In /app, open the project you connected. Verify the hostname is correct before you spend a Free lifetime completion.

2. 2

   Start the scan

   Use the scan / start action from onboarding or the project surface. Marketing pages also offer a start path after signup. Expected duration copy often shows ~1–2 minutes.

3. 3

   Wait for completion

   Stay signed in and let the pipeline finish. Do not start duplicate scans while one is running. When complete, open the report in the app and optionally share the public /r/[slug] link.

Pipeline stages explained

1. Crawl

VisibleMax fetches publicly reachable pages and machine-oriented signals from your site. This stage grounds later findings in evidence (URLs and excerpts) rather than generic advice. Thin crawls (blocked bots, empty shells, soft-404s) produce weaker reports.

2. Analyze

Analysis turns crawl artifacts into structural readiness signals: entity clarity, answer coverage gaps, technical issues (robots, schema, crawl guidance), and prioritized findings. This is where the 0–100 score composition begins — still an estimate of readiness, not a mention guarantee.

3. Probe

Probe asks buyer-shaped prompts across supported AI platforms and records how assistants respond relative to your brand and competitors. Designed platforms include OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini), Perplexity, xAI (Grok), and DeepSeek. Probing is key-gated: if a provider key is unset, that platform is skipped gracefully.

4. Discovery / weekly plan

Alongside the core report, VisibleMax can produce discovery outputs — notably the weekly execution plan and related studio-oriented recommendations. Full weekly plan and studio workflows are Pro capabilities; Free emphasizes the first report’s score, summary, and top findings.

Duration expectations

If a scan appears stuck far beyond normal windows, see Slow scans and Scan failed.

What you should (and should not) do during a scan

• Do keep the project URL stable — do not swap DNS mid-scan.
• Do not hammer “start” repeatedly; duplicate runs waste quota and confuse state.
• Do not expect live edits on your site to appear mid-pipeline; ship fixes, then rescan (Pro).
• Do prepare stakeholders: Free users should treat this as their one completed baseline.

When the scan completes

1. Open the in-app report for full authenticated context.
2. Note the score band and top findings — Free shows a gated subset.
3. Copy or open the public report link at /r/[slug] if you want to share externally.
4. Continue to Understand the report.