What are the 48 AEO criteria?

The 48 criteria are organized into 5 pillars with fixed target shares: Answer Readiness 40%, Content Structure 25%, Trust & Authority 15%, Technical Foundation 10%, and AI Discovery 10%. Inside those pillars, criteria cover topic coherence, original data, depth, fact density, direct answers, Q&A structure, entity authority, freshness, visible dates, schema, semantic HTML, extraction friction, llms.txt, robots.txt, licensing, canonicals, sitemap coverage, and RSS. Each criterion is scored 0–10, converted into an effective weight after confidence and overlap controls, then rolled into the final score.

What does the RSS feed audit check?

The audit verifies your site has a discoverable RSS or Atom feed with proper metadata. It checks feed existence at common paths, a link tag in the HTML head, adequate item count, and pubDate per item. RSS feeds let AI indexing systems detect new content automatically without waiting for a full crawl.

What is content cannibalization and how does it hurt AI visibility?

Content cannibalization happens when multiple pages on your site target the same topic, forcing AI to guess which one to cite. The scorer compares page titles and content similarity across your site. Fix it by consolidating competing pages into one authoritative resource with 301 redirects from the old URLs. When Topic Coherence is low, the cannibalization penalty becomes more aggressive.

How does canonical URL strategy affect AI visibility?

When multiple URLs serve the same content — with/without www, HTTP/HTTPS, trailing slashes — AI crawlers split signals across duplicates. The audit checks every page for a rel=canonical link pointing to the correct URL. Missing or conflicting canonicals confuse crawlers about which version to index, diluting your AI visibility.

What are conditional audit criteria?

Conditional criteria are checks that only apply to certain site types. Product/Offer schema applies only to e-commerce. Hreflang only to multilingual sites. ai.txt/TDM policy only to sites with substantial original content. Speakable schema was previously conditional but is now an active scored criterion in the 48-criteria framework. The remaining conditional criteria supplement the 34 universal audit criteria.

alpaca.markets - AEO Audit Report | 62/100

WINTER 2019 alpaca.markets

Moderate AI visibility with 34 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: rss/atom feed.

Scoring Methodology

How Your AEO Site Rank Is Calculated

A weighted average of 48 deterministic criteria. Each scored 0-10, each with a specific weight. No AI judgment calls - every point is traceable.

Moderate visibilityOut of 100 possible points

The Formula

Score = sum(criterion_score / 10 * weight * 100) / sum(weights)

Each criterion is scored 0-10 by deterministic checks, multiplied by its weight, and summed to produce a 0-100 overall score.

Your Score Breakdown

Content9 criteria

Q&A Content Format15%9/10+13.5

FAQ Sections10%9/10+9.0

Original Data10%8/10+8.0

Content Freshness7%2/10+1.4

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%10/10+7.0

Fact & Data Density5%10/10+5.0

Definition Patterns4%7/10+2.8

Query-Answer Alignment8%10/10+8.0

Content Cannibalization5%5/10+2.5

Subtotal71%+57.2

Structure5 criteria

Schema.org JSON-LD15%9/10+13.5

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%8/10+8.0

Semantic HTML55%10/10+5.0

Table & List Extractability7%6/10+4.2

Schema Coverage3%6/10+1.8

Subtotal40%+32.5

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%2/10+1.0

Internal Linking10%8/10+8.0

Sitemap Completeness5%10/10+5.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+24.0

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%8/10+8.0

Content Licensing4%4/10+1.6

Author & Expert Schema4%4/10+1.6

Canonical URL4%0/10+0.0

Content Velocity3%10/10+3.0

Visible Date Signals4%7/10+2.8

Subtotal29%+17.0

Overall Score100%62/100

Score Ranges

86-100AI-first content architecture

71-85Strong AI visibility

56-70Moderate visibility

41-55Weak visibility

26-40Minimal visibility

0-25Not on the radar

Key Points

Topic Coherence carries the highest weight at 14%, followed by Original Data at 10%, across 48 total criteria.

No HTTPS means Clean HTML is capped at 3/10, costing approximately 3-4 overall points.

Every criterion uses deterministic checks. Same site, same audit, same score - every time.

Read full scoring methodology →

↓7 since v5

Citation Avg

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

7/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

9/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

6/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

6/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

6/10

Verdict

Moderate AEO readiness at 62/100 with significant gaps to address. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Semantic HTML5 & Accessibility, and Sitemap Completeness. Priority gaps: RSS/Atom Feed, Canonical URL Strategy, and Speakable Schema.

Top priorities

RSS/Atom FeedDiscovery+10 pts

Canonical URL StrategyDiscovery+10 pts

Speakable SchemaTechnical+10 pts

#360of 13300

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How to Improve

Current

62/100

Projected

85/100

36Total Fixes

10Quick Wins

~60hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlersAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaFix canonical URL strategyMake content creators clearly visibleExplain how content was tested or reviewedAdd answer-first content placementReduce extraction frictionFix duplicate content blocksReduce render-blocking resources

Fix

Impact

Effort

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlers

Update robots.txt to explicitly allow AI crawlers and include sitemap directive.

critical

low

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlers

critical|low

Fix canonical URL strategy

Add rel="canonical" tags to all pages to prevent duplicate content confusion.

critical

low

Fix canonical URL strategy

critical|low

Reduce render-blocking resources

Minimize blocking scripts and stylesheets in <head> to improve content availability for AI crawlers.

high

low

Reduce render-blocking resources

high|low

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

Ensure clean, well-structured HTML with proper meta tags, HTTPS, and parseable content for AI crawlers.

low

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

low|low

Add internationalization signals

Implement hreflang tags and lang attributes so AI engines serve the correct language version when answering queries.

critical

medium

Add internationalization signals

critical|medium

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Top Opportunities10

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Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

RSS/Atom Feed

critical+10 pts0/10

Canonical URL Strategy

critical+10 pts0/10

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

robots.txt for AI Crawlers

critical+8 pts2/10

Content Freshness Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

Image Context for AI

critical+8 pts2/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+7 pts3/10

Cross-Page Duplicate Content

critical+7 pts3/10

Internationalization Signals

critical+7 pts3/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

moderate+6 pts4/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

alpaca.markets/algotradingAlpaca - Algorithmic Trading API, Commission-Free

D43

content

3,335

alpaca.markets/algotradingD43

Alpaca - Algorithmic Trading API, Commission-Free

alpaca.markets/broker-resourcesBroker API Resources: Webinars, eBooks, and Guides

F35

blog

3,252

alpaca.markets/broker-resourcesF35

Broker API Resources: Webinars, eBooks, and Guides

alpaca.markets/resourcesAlpaca - 404 not found

D40

resources

1,766

alpaca.markets/resourcesD40

Alpaca - 404 not found

alpaca.markets/learn/how-to-trade-options-with-alpacaHow To Trade Options with Alpaca's Dashboard and Trading API

F38

blog

8,232

alpaca.markets/learn/how-to-trade-options-with-alpacaF38

How To Trade Options with Alpaca's Dashboard and Trading API

alpaca.markets/learn/podcast-episode2Fintech Underground by Alpaca Featuring Remy Astie

F37

content

7,120

alpaca.markets/learn/podcast-episode2F37

Fintech Underground by Alpaca Featuring Remy Astie

alpaca.markets/learn/free-rsi-and-macd-trading-bot-with-c...How to Build a Free Trading Bot with ChatGPT and Alpaca

D44

blog

5,059

alpaca.markets/learn/free-rsi-and-macd-trading-bot-with-c...D44

How to Build a Free Trading Bot with ChatGPT and Alpaca

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Changes since v5Last audited 16 days ago

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Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

Criteria0/10

RSS Feed Presence & Quality

Sitemaps tell crawlers what exists. RSS feeds tell them what changed. If you don't have one, your new content waits days -or weeks -to be discovered.

Beginner·3 min readRead guide →

Criteria0/10

Canonical URL Strategy

Same content, three URLs, zero canonical tags. Congratulations -you just split your authority three ways and gave AI crawlers a headache.

Intermediate·5 min readRead guide →

supplementary0/10

Speakable Schema Markup

Voice assistants need to pick which paragraph to read aloud from your page. Without Speakable markup, they guess -and they frequently guess wrong, reading your cookie notice.

Beginner·3 min readRead guide →

Criteria2/10

robots.txt for AI: Rolling Out the Red Carpet (or Slamming the Door)

Most sites run default platform robots.txt with zero AI-specific rules. That's not a strategy -it's an accident. Explicit Allow rules for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot signal that your content is open for citation.

Beginner·3 min readRead guide →

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Verdict

How to Improve

Unlock Full Improvement Plan

Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI39

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Score Breakdown

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Site Pages

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