Question 1

What are the 22 AEO criteria?

Accepted Answer

The 22 criteria are organized into 4 dimensions. CONTENT (7 criteria) - is your content worth citing? Q&A Content Format, FAQ Sections, Original Data, Content Freshness, Definition Patterns, Direct Answer Paragraphs, Fact Density. STRUCTURE (5) - can machines parse it? Schema.org Structured Data, Clean Crawlable HTML, Semantic HTML5, Sitemap Completeness, Schema Coverage. DISCOVERY (5) - can AI engines find you? llms.txt, robots.txt for AI Crawlers, Internal Linking, Sitemap Completeness, RSS Feed. TRUST SIGNALS (5) - can AI verify your credibility? Entity Authority, Content Licensing, Author Schema, Canonical URL, Content Velocity. Each is scored 0–10, weighted, and rolled up to a total out of 100.

Question 2

What does the RSS feed audit check?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 3

How does the technical audit check sitemap completeness?

Accepted Answer

The audit compares URLs in your sitemap.xml against pages discovered by crawling. It checks for missing URLs, stale lastmod timestamps that don't reflect actual changes, incorrect priority values, and orphaned entries pointing to deleted pages. A complete, accurate sitemap ensures AI crawlers discover every page you want indexed.

Question 4

How do AI answer engines decide which sources to cite?

Accepted Answer

AI systems evaluate structured data quality, content relevance, entity authority signals, content freshness, and how well the format matches the question. Sites with Schema.org markup, clear entity information, and Q&A-formatted content get cited far more often than sites with unstructured, anonymous content.

Question 5

What makes content "original" for AEO purposes?

Accepted Answer

Proprietary data, first-hand research, expert analysis with author credentials, unique case studies, perspectives you won't find elsewhere. AI engines value original sources because they add new information to the knowledge base. Rephrasing content from other sources adds zero value for AI citation.

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