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.

Do I need technical skills to improve my AEO Site Rank?

Some improvements — writing FAQ content, adding author bios — require zero technical skills. Others — deploying JSON-LD schema, modifying robots.txt — require basic HTML knowledge or developer access. Our Knowledge Base guides include code examples for each criterion. For hands-on help, we offer professional services.

What is the fastest way to improve my AI visibility?

Start with high-impact, low-effort wins: (1) Create an llms.txt file, (2) Add Organization JSON-LD to your homepage, (3) Update robots.txt to allow AI crawlers, (4) Add FAQPage schema to existing FAQ content. These four changes take under a day and typically produce noticeable improvements within weeks.

Can I implement AEO improvements on WordPress?

Yes. WordPress has excellent AEO support. Use Yoast SEO for schema markup, create llms.txt via FTP or a custom plugin, edit robots.txt through Yoast or directly, and build FAQ pages with Gutenberg blocks. Most WordPress themes already produce clean, crawlable HTML.

What is the minimum viable AEO setup for a new website?

Four things on day one: (1) Organization JSON-LD schema on every page, (2) a well-structured llms.txt at your domain root, (3) robots.txt explicitly allowing GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot, (4) at least one FAQ page with FAQPage schema. This baseline takes a few hours and establishes the foundation everything else builds on.

gatsby.events - AEO Audit Report | 49/100

gatsby.events

Weak AI visibility with 30 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: comprehensive faq section.

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%10/10+15.0

FAQ Sections10%0/10+0.0

Original Data10%5/10+5.0

Content Freshness7%2/10+1.4

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%10/10+7.0

Fact & Data Density5%10/10+5.0

Definition Patterns4%9/10+3.6

Query-Answer Alignment8%10/10+8.0

Content Cannibalization5%6/10+3.0

Subtotal71%+48.0

Structure5 criteria

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

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%9/10+9.0

Semantic HTML55%9/10+4.5

Table & List Extractability7%10/10+7.0

Schema Coverage3%6/10+1.8

Subtotal40%+35.8

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%2/10+1.0

Internal Linking10%8/10+8.0

Sitemap Completeness5%0/10+0.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+19.0

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%6/10+6.0

Content Licensing4%2/10+0.8

Author & Expert Schema4%4/10+1.6

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%0/10+0.0

Visible Date Signals4%5/10+2.0

Subtotal29%+14.4

Overall Score100%49/100

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 →

↓8 since v4

Citation Avg

Coherence gate active - score capped at 55

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

6/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

8/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

5/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

7/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

4/10

Verdict

Below-average AEO readiness at 49/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Q&A Content Format, and Table & List Extractability. Priority gaps: Comprehensive FAQ Section, Sitemap Completeness, and RSS/Atom Feed. Topic coherence is 4/10, which caps the overall score at 55. Focusing content on core expertise areas is the single highest-impact improvement.

Top priorities

Comprehensive FAQ SectionStructure+10 pts

Sitemap CompletenessDiscovery+10 pts

RSS/Atom FeedDiscovery+10 pts

#4428of 13300

View full rankings →

How to Improve

Current

49/100

Projected

80/100

35Total Fixes

9Quick Wins

~69hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlersLink orphan pages into site navigationAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaAdd visible date signalsFocus blog content on core expertiseMake content creators clearly visibleImprove citation-ready writing qualityClarify entity boundaries

Fix

Impact

Effort

Create complete sitemap.xml

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

critical

medium

Create complete sitemap.xml

critical|medium

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

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

Reduce document weight

Trim oversized HTML, excessive DOM nodes, and large inline payloads that slow AI crawlers.

medium

low

Reduce document weight

medium|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

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Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI37

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Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Comprehensive FAQ Section

critical+10 pts0/10

Sitemap Completeness

critical+10 pts0/10

RSS/Atom Feed

critical+10 pts0/10

Content Publishing Velocity

critical+10 pts0/10

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

robots.txt for AI Crawlers

critical+8 pts2/10

Content Freshness Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

critical+8 pts2/10

Methodology Transparency

critical+8 pts2/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

gatsby.events/troubleshootingTroubleshooting | Gatsby Events

F37

content

3,505

gatsby.events/troubleshootingF37

Troubleshooting | Gatsby Events

gatsby.events/tosTerms of Service | Gatsby Events

F27

content

1,144

gatsby.events/tosF27

gatsby.events/platformPlatform Overview | Gatsby Events

F31

content

913

gatsby.events/platformF31

Platform Overview | Gatsby Events

gatsby.events/platform/day-of-event/guest-appGuest App | Gatsby Events

F37

content

2,484

gatsby.events/platform/day-of-event/guest-appF37

Guest App | Gatsby Events

gatsby.events/platform/contacts/contact-profilesContact Profiles | Gatsby Events

F36

content

2,438

gatsby.events/platform/contacts/contact-profilesF36

Contact Profiles | Gatsby Events

gatsby.events/platform/contacts/organize-contactsOrganizing Contacts | Gatsby Events

F37

content

1,964

gatsby.events/platform/contacts/organize-contactsF37

Organizing Contacts | Gatsby Events

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Changes since v4Last audited 16 days ago

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-8

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Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

Criteria0/10

FAQ Sections: 87 Questions Turned Our Score Into 88

Our site runs 87 FAQ items across 9 categories with FAQPage schema on every one. That's not excessive -it's how we hit 88/100. Each Q&A pair is a citation opportunity AI can extract in seconds.

Intermediate·8 min readRead guide →

Criteria0/10

Sitemap Completeness

Your sitemap says 500 pages exist. Our crawl finds 700. Those 200 missing URLs? AI crawlers will never know they exist.

Beginner·5 min readRead guide →

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

Content Publishing Velocity

You published a great blog post in January. It's now February and nothing else has appeared. AI engines notice -and they're crawling less often because of it.

Advanced·5 min readRead guide →

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Verdict

How to Improve

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Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI37

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Score Breakdown

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Site Pages

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