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.

How do AI answer engines decide which sources to cite?

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.

What makes content "original" for AEO purposes?

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.

How is fact density calculated in the technical audit?

Fact density counts verifiable claims per 1,000 words — named statistics, specific numbers, dated references, attributable statements. The audit uses NLP to identify factual assertions versus opinions or filler. Pages with fact density above 5 claims per 1,000 words are significantly more likely to be cited by AI engines. It's one of the strongest predictors of citation-worthiness.

nebuly.ai - AEO Audit Report | 56/100

nebuly.ai

Moderate AI visibility with 16 of 34 criteria passing. Biggest gap: rss/atom feed.

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%6/10+9.0

FAQ Sections10%2/10+2.0

Original Data10%8/10+8.0

Content Freshness7%2/10+1.4

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%4/10+2.8

Fact & Data Density5%8/10+4.0

Definition Patterns4%7/10+2.8

Query-Answer Alignment8%5/10+4.0

Content Cannibalization5%10/10+5.0

Subtotal71%+39.0

Structure5 criteria

Schema.org JSON-LD15%7/10+10.5

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%6/10+6.0

Semantic HTML55%4/10+2.0

Table & List Extractability7%2/10+1.4

Schema Coverage3%3/10+0.9

Subtotal40%+20.8

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%10/10+5.0

Internal Linking10%7/10+7.0

Sitemap Completeness5%7/10+3.5

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+25.5

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%2/10+0.6

Visible Date Signals4%0/10+0.0

Subtotal29%+11.0

Overall Score100%56/100

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 →

↓3 since v3

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

7/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

4/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

5/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

3/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

6/10

Verdict

Moderate AEO readiness at 56/100 with significant gaps to address. Key strengths include llms.txt File, robots.txt for AI Crawlers, and Content Cannibalization. Priority gaps: RSS/Atom Feed, Content Licensing & AI Permissions, and Speakable Schema.

Top priorities

RSS/Atom FeedDiscovery+10 pts

Content Licensing & AI PermissionsDiscovery+10 pts

Speakable SchemaTechnical+10 pts

#1479of 13300

View full rankings →

How to Improve

Current

56/100

Projected

100/100

31Total Fixes

8Quick Wins

~69hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Implement semantic HTML5 elementsAdd direct answer paragraphsAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaImprove query-answer alignmentAdd visible date signalsIncrease content depth and structureClarify entity boundaries

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

Create complete sitemap.xml

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

medium

low

Create complete sitemap.xml

medium|low

Fix canonical URL strategy

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

medium

trivial

Fix canonical URL strategy

medium|trivial

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

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

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

Comprehensive FAQ Section

critical+8 pts2/10

Content Freshness Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

Table & List Extractability

critical+8 pts2/10

Content Publishing Velocity

critical+8 pts2/10

Schema Coverage & Depth

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

www.nebuly.com/features-user-feedbackFeatures: User feedback | Nebuly | Agentic AI User Analytics

content

516

www.nebuly.com/features-user-feedback22

Features: User feedback | Nebuly | Agentic AI User Analytics

www.nebuly.com/securitySecurity | Nebuly | User Analytics for Agentic AI

content

670

www.nebuly.com/security25

Security | Nebuly | User Analytics for Agentic AI

www.nebuly.com/blogBlog | Nebuly | User Analytics for Agentic AI

content

4,638

www.nebuly.com/blog38

Blog | Nebuly | User Analytics for Agentic AI

www.nebuly.com/changelogProduct Changelog | Nebuly | User Analytics for Agentic AI

content

10,716

www.nebuly.com/changelog48

Product Changelog | Nebuly | User Analytics for Agentic AI

Changes since v3Last audited 29 days ago

→

-3

View full comparison →

Improve Citation-Ready WritingAdd Answer-First PlacementAdd Content Licensing & ai.txtAdd Visible Date Signals

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

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

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 →

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 →