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.

knowlify.net - AEO Audit Report | 58/100

SUMMER 2025 knowlify.net

Moderate AI visibility with 22 of 34 criteria passing. Biggest gap: comprehensive faq section.

Scoring Methodology

How Your AEO Site Rank Is Calculated

A weighted average of 34 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%8/10+12.0

FAQ Sections10%0/10+0.0

Original Data10%5/10+5.0

Content Freshness7%2/10+1.4

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%7/10+4.9

Fact & Data Density5%6/10+3.0

Definition Patterns4%7/10+2.8

Query-Answer Alignment8%10/10+8.0

Content Cannibalization5%10/10+5.0

Subtotal71%+42.1

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%3/10+2.1

Schema Coverage3%7/10+2.1

Subtotal40%+31.2

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%6/10+3.0

Internal Linking10%3/10+3.0

Sitemap Completeness5%9/10+4.5

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+20.5

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%6/10+6.0

Content Licensing4%0/10+0.0

Author & Expert Schema4%4/10+1.6

Canonical URL4%7/10+2.8

Content Velocity3%10/10+3.0

Visible Date Signals4%0/10+0.0

Subtotal29%+13.4

Overall Score100%58/100

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 34 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 →

↓4 since v3

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

6/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

6/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

4/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

6/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

8/10

Verdict

Moderate AEO readiness at 58/100 with significant gaps to address. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Content Publishing Velocity, and Query-Answer Alignment. Priority gaps: Comprehensive FAQ Section, RSS/Atom Feed, and Content Licensing & AI Permissions.

Top priorities

Comprehensive FAQ SectionStructure+10 pts

RSS/Atom FeedDiscovery+10 pts

Content Licensing & AI PermissionsDiscovery+10 pts

#996of 13300

View full rankings →

How to Improve

Current

58/100

Projected

100/100

23Total Fixes

5Quick Wins

~41hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Improve internal linking architectureAdd direct answer paragraphsAdd ai.txt and content licensingIncrease fact and data densityAdd visible date signals

Fix

Impact

Effort

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlers

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

medium

trivial

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlers

medium|trivial

Fix canonical URL strategy

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

medium

trivial

Fix canonical URL strategy

medium|trivial

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

Create complete sitemap.xml

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

low

Create complete sitemap.xml

low|low

Unlock Full Improvement Plan

Top Opportunities10

Unlock Opportunities

Fix It With AI30

Unlock AI Fix Prompts

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

Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Comprehensive FAQ Section

critical+10 pts0/10

RSS/Atom Feed

critical+10 pts0/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

critical+10 pts0/10

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Visible Date Signal

critical+10 pts0/10

Entity Disambiguation

critical+9 pts1/10

Extraction Friction Score

critical+9 pts1/10

Content Freshness Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

Image Context for AI

critical+8 pts2/10

Internal Linking Structure

critical+7 pts3/10

Unlock Full Audit Report

See all 34 criteria with detailed findings and actionable fix recommendations.

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Site Pages

URLSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

knowlify.com/articlesArticles | Knowlify

content

1,522

knowlify.com/articles39

Articles | Knowlify

Changes since v3Last audited 29 days ago

→

-4

View full comparison →

Criterion

Delta

Schema.org Structured Data

10/10

9/10

-1

Comprehensive FAQ Section

3/10

0/10

-3

Internal Linking Structure

5/10

3/10

-2

Semantic HTML5 & Accessibility

7/10

9/10

Sitemap Completeness

8/10

9/10

Direct Answer Paragraphs

5/10

7/10

Author & Expert Schema

2/10

4/10

Fact & Data Density

5/10

6/10

Schema Coverage & Depth

6/10

7/10

Topic Coherence

9/10

8/10

-1

Content Depth

7/10

8/10

Add Content Licensing & ai.txtAdd Visible Date SignalsImprove Citation-Ready WritingAdd Direct Answer ParagraphsEnhance Author & Expert SchemaIncrease Content Depth

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

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

Fact Density Measurement

AI engines are citation machines -they need specific facts to quote. A page full of general advice with zero data points gives them nothing to work with.

Advanced·8 min readRead guide →

Criteria2/10

Schema Coverage Ratio

Your homepage has perfect JSON-LD. Your other 200 pages? Zero. Here's how we measure the gap -and why AI engines judge your whole domain by it.

Advanced·8 min readRead guide →