How does the technical audit check sitemap completeness?

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.

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.

What are audit versions and how do they work?

Each time we re-audit a domain, a new version is created. You can view any previous version and compare two side by side to see exactly which criteria changed. This is how you measure the impact of your AEO work over time.

Can I compare my AEO Site Rank over time?

Yes. Every audit is versioned. You can see exactly how your score changed between audits — which criteria improved, which declined, and the overall trajectory. This is how you measure the impact of your AEO work.

paypal.com - AEO Audit Report | 53/100

paypal.com

Moderate AI visibility with 27 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: sitemap completeness.

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%7/10+10.5

FAQ Sections10%7/10+7.0

Original Data10%8/10+8.0

Content Freshness7%2/10+1.4

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%4/10+2.8

Fact & Data Density5%10/10+5.0

Definition Patterns4%7/10+2.8

Query-Answer Alignment8%4/10+3.2

Content Cannibalization5%10/10+5.0

Subtotal71%+45.7

Structure5 criteria

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

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%6/10+6.0

Semantic HTML55%6/10+3.0

Table & List Extractability7%10/10+7.0

Schema Coverage3%9/10+2.7

Subtotal40%+32.2

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%5/10+2.5

Internal Linking10%8/10+8.0

Sitemap Completeness5%0/10+0.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+20.5

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%3/10+3.0

Content Licensing4%4/10+1.6

Author & Expert Schema4%4/10+1.6

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%0/10+0.0

Visible Date Signals4%0/10+0.0

Subtotal29%+10.2

Overall Score100%53/100

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 →

↑4 since v7

Citation Avg

Coherence gate active - score capped at 60

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

7/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

7/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

5/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

4/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

5/10

Verdict

Below-average AEO readiness at 53/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Table & List Extractability, and Fact & Data Density. Priority gaps: Sitemap Completeness, RSS/Atom Feed, and Content Publishing Velocity. Topic coherence is moderate at 5/10, capping the score at 60. Tighter topical focus would lift this ceiling.

Top priorities

Sitemap CompletenessDiscovery+10 pts

RSS/Atom FeedDiscovery+10 pts

Content Publishing VelocityDiscovery+10 pts

#2764of 13300

View full rankings →

How to Improve

Current

53/100

Projected

81/100

37Total Fixes

13Quick Wins

~67hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlersLink orphan pages into site navigationAdd direct answer paragraphsAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaImprove query-answer alignmentAdd visible date signalsFocus blog content on core expertiseClarify entity boundariesReduce extraction frictionFix duplicate content blocksImprove server response efficiencyReduce document weight

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

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

Reduce render-blocking resources

Minimize blocking scripts and stylesheets in <head> to improve content availability for AI crawlers.

critical

medium

Reduce render-blocking resources

critical|medium

Reduce document weight

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

high

low

Reduce document weight

high|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

Unlock Full Improvement Plan

Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI40

Unlock AI Fix Prompts

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Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

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

Visible Date Signal

critical+10 pts0/10

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

Content Freshness Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

Entity Authority & NAP Consistency

critical+7 pts3/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+7 pts3/10

Creator Transparency

critical+7 pts3/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

www.paypal.com/mobile-app/dashboardPayPal

F33

content

2,734

www.paypal.com/mobile-app/dashboardF33

PayPal

Changes since v7Last audited 8 days ago

→

View full comparison →

Criterion

Delta

Q&A Content Format

5/10

7/10

Original Data & Expert Analysis

5/10

8/10

Semantic HTML5 & Accessibility

4/10

6/10

Table & List Extractability

8/10

10/10

Definition Patterns

5/10

7/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

0/10

4/10

Author & Expert Schema

2/10

4/10

Content Depth

7/10

10/10

Helpful Purpose Alignment

6/10

7/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

2/10

3/10

Creator Transparency

2/10

3/10

Citation-Ready Writing Quality

4/10

8/10

Evidence Packaging

3/10

6/10

Entity Disambiguation

3/10

4/10

Extraction Friction Score

3/10

4/10

Image Context for AI

2/10

1/10

-1

Duplicate Content Blocks

10/10

5/10

-5

Page Speed: Server Response

6/10

5/10

-1

Page Speed: Load Blockers

4/10

3/10

-1

Page Speed: Page Size

7/10

4/10

-3

Owned Data Density

0/10

6/10

Fix Duplicate Content BlocksAdd Answer Capsule PatternsIncrease Publishing FrequencyAdd First-Hand Experience SignalsAdd Entity DisambiguationAdd Original Data & Case StudiesAdd Owned Data SignalsIncrease Content DepthPackage Evidence for AIImprove Citation-Ready Writing

Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

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 →

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 →

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Verdict

How to Improve

Unlock Full Improvement Plan

Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI40

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Score Breakdown

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