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.

How do I read the audit scorecard?

Each of the 48 criteria shows a score from 0–10 with a status indicator. Green (8–10) means strong. Yellow (5–7) means partial — room to improve. Red (0–4) means missing or broken. Click any criterion to see detailed findings and a link to the relevant Knowledge Base guide.

How important is heading hierarchy for AI visibility?

Critical. AI systems use heading hierarchy (H1 → H2 → H3) to understand content structure and topic relationships. One H1 per page — the main topic. H2s for major sections, H3s for subsections. Question-format headings like "What is AEO?" are especially effective because they match how users query AI assistants.

What content licensing signals does the audit check?

The audit looks for machine-readable licensing metadata: CreativeWork license properties in JSON-LD, meta tags indicating reuse policy, copyright notices, ai.txt declarations, and TDM Reservation Protocol headers. Clear licensing tells AI systems whether they can quote or reference your content in their answers.

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.

blueaglemarketing.com - AEO Audit Report | 48/100

blueaglemarketing.com

Weak AI visibility with 27 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: semantic html5 & accessibility.

Marketing Automation Marketing & Advertising

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.

Weak 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%1/10+1.5

FAQ Sections10%3/10+3.0

Original Data10%6/10+6.0

Content Freshness7%7/10+4.9

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%4/10+2.8

Fact & Data Density5%4/10+2.0

Definition Patterns4%5/10+2.0

Query-Answer Alignment8%5/10+4.0

Content Cannibalization5%7/10+3.5

Subtotal71%+29.7

Structure5 criteria

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

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%7/10+7.0

Semantic HTML55%0/10+0.0

Table & List Extractability7%3/10+2.1

Schema Coverage3%9/10+2.7

Subtotal40%+25.3

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%5/10+2.5

Internal Linking10%7/10+7.0

Sitemap Completeness5%6/10+3.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%10/10+3.0

Subtotal33%+25.5

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%8/10+8.0

Content Licensing4%0/10+0.0

Author & Expert Schema4%5/10+2.0

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%2/10+0.6

Visible Date Signals4%3/10+1.2

Subtotal29%+15.8

Overall Score100%48/100

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 →

↓6 since v5

Citation Avg

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

6/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

4/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

6/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

4/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

6/10

Verdict

Below-average AEO readiness at 48/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include llms.txt File, RSS/Atom Feed, and Canonical URL Strategy. Priority gaps: Semantic HTML5 & Accessibility, Content Licensing & AI Permissions, and Speakable Schema.

Top priorities

Semantic HTML5 & AccessibilityTechnical+10 pts

Content Licensing & AI PermissionsDiscovery+10 pts

Speakable SchemaTechnical+10 pts

#5345of 13300

#136of 316 in Marketing Automation

Ahead of you

vividimpact.com48

levlane.com48

View full rankings →

How to Improve

Current

48/100

Projected

79/100

39Total Fixes

11Quick Wins

~83hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlersLink orphan pages into site navigationAdd definition-style contentAdd direct answer paragraphsAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaIncrease fact and data densityImprove query-answer alignmentAdd visible date signalsMake content creators clearly visibleReduce render-blocking resources

Fix

Impact

Effort

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

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

medium

low

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

medium|low

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlers

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

high

trivial

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlers

high|trivial

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

Create complete sitemap.xml

Generate a comprehensive sitemap with lastmod dates for all important pages.

medium

low

Create complete sitemap.xml

medium|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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Fix It With AI41

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41 copy-paste prompts ready - sign in to access.

Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Semantic HTML5 & Accessibility

critical+10 pts0/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

critical+10 pts0/10

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Content Depth

critical+10 pts0/10

Evidence Packaging

critical+10 pts0/10

Image Context for AI

critical+10 pts0/10

Owned Data Density

critical+10 pts0/10

Q&A Content Format

critical+9 pts1/10

Content Publishing Velocity

critical+8 pts2/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

blueaglemarketing.com/blogBlog - Internet Marketing Internet Marketing

F38

content

934

blueaglemarketing.com/blogF38

Blog - Internet Marketing Internet Marketing

blueaglemarketing.com/bvoBranded Video Optimization - Internet Marketing Internet Marketing

F28

content

532

blueaglemarketing.com/bvoF28

Branded Video Optimization - Internet Marketing Internet Marketing

blueaglemarketing.com/seoSearch Engine Optimization - Internet Marketing Internet Marketing

F32

content

519

blueaglemarketing.com/seoF32

Search Engine Optimization - Internet Marketing Internet Marketing

Changes since v5Last audited 8 days ago

→

-6

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Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

Criteria0/10

Semantic HTML5: The Difference Between a Page and a Page AI Can Parse

A page built with <div> everywhere looks the same to AI as a page with no structure at all. Semantic elements -<main>, <article>, <section>, <time> -are the markup that tells AI where your content starts, what it means, and how it's organized.

Intermediate·3 min readRead guide →

Criteria0/10

Content Licensing Signals

You want AI engines to cite your content. But have you actually told them they're allowed to? Most sites haven't -and AI systems default to conservative behavior.

Beginner·3 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 →

Criteria0/10

Content Depth: Why Thin Pages Are Invisible to AI

A 300-word page cannot compete with a 3,000-word deep dive for an AI citation. Content Depth measures the substance on your pages - word counts, heading structure, and the ratio of deep pages to thin ones across your site.

Intermediate·8 min readRead guide →

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Verdict

How to Improve

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Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI41

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Score Breakdown

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