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.

sygaldry.com - AEO Audit Report | 35/100

SPRING 2025 sygaldry.com

Weak AI visibility with 20 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: comprehensive faq section.

Developer Tools & Infrastructure Cloud Infrastructure

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.

Minimal 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%1/10+1.5

FAQ Sections10%0/10+0.0

Original Data10%0/10+0.0

Content Freshness7%2/10+1.4

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%2/10+1.4

Fact & Data Density5%1/10+0.5

Definition Patterns4%0/10+0.0

Query-Answer Alignment8%5/10+4.0

Content Cannibalization5%5/10+2.5

Subtotal71%+11.3

Structure5 criteria

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

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%3/10+3.0

Semantic HTML55%5/10+2.5

Table & List Extractability7%0/10+0.0

Schema Coverage3%5/10+1.5

Subtotal40%+17.5

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%4/10+2.0

Internal Linking10%3/10+3.0

Sitemap Completeness5%5/10+2.5

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+17.5

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%6/10+6.0

Content Licensing4%0/10+0.0

Author & Expert Schema4%9/10+3.6

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%2/10+0.6

Visible Date Signals4%0/10+0.0

Subtotal29%+14.2

Overall Score100%35/100

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 v4

Citation Avg

Coherence gate active - score capped at 60

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

4/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

2/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

4/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

4/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

5/10

Verdict

Critical AEO gaps at 35/100 - sygaldry.com is largely invisible to AI engines. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Canonical URL Strategy, and Answer-First Placement. Priority gaps: Comprehensive FAQ Section, Original Data & Expert Analysis, and RSS/Atom Feed. HTTPS is not enabled, which caps several criteria scores and reduces AI crawler trust. Topic coherence is moderate at 5/10, capping the score at 60. Tighter topical focus would lift this ceiling.

Top priorities

Comprehensive FAQ SectionStructure+10 pts

Original Data & Expert AnalysisAnswer+10 pts

RSS/Atom FeedDiscovery+10 pts

#10977of 13300

#1929of 2335 in Developer Tools & Infrastructure

Ahead of you

paraquery.com35

percy.tech35

View full rankings →

How to Improve

Current

35/100

Projected

74/100

38Total Fixes

12Quick Wins

~95hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlersImplement semantic HTML5 elementsCreate complete sitemap.xmlAdd ai.txt and content licensingExtend schema to inner pagesImprove query-answer alignmentAdd visible date signalsFocus blog content on core expertiseAdd first-hand experience signalsExplain how content was tested or reviewedAdd image context for AI enginesEliminate cross-page duplicate content

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.

critical

medium

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

critical|medium

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

Create complete sitemap.xml

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

high

low

Create complete sitemap.xml

high|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

Improve server response efficiency

Optimize compression, cache headers, redirect chains, and HTML payload size for faster AI crawler access.

medium

low

Improve server response efficiency

medium|low

Unlock Full Improvement Plan

Top Opportunities10

Unlock Opportunities

Fix It With AI41

Unlock AI Fix Prompts

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

Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Comprehensive FAQ Section

critical+10 pts0/10

Original Data & Expert Analysis

critical+10 pts0/10

RSS/Atom Feed

critical+10 pts0/10

Table & List Extractability

critical+10 pts0/10

Definition Patterns

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

Answer Capsule Pattern

critical+10 pts0/10

Owned Data Density

critical+10 pts0/10

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See all 48 criteria with detailed findings and actionable fix recommendations.

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteCategoryIssuesWords

sygaldry.comSygaldry - Quantum-Accelerated AI

F29

homepage

478

sygaldry.comF29

Sygaldry - Quantum-Accelerated AI

Changes since v4Last audited 8 days ago

→

-4

View full comparison →

Criterion

Delta

Clean, Crawlable HTML

8/10

3/10

-5

robots.txt for AI Crawlers

6/10

4/10

-2

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

Original Data: The Content AI Can't Find Anywhere Else

AI has a trust hierarchy for sources. At the top: proprietary data and first-hand expert analysis. At the bottom: rewritten Wikipedia articles. We've watched AI preferentially cite sites with original benchmarks -even over bigger competitors.

Advanced·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

Table & List Extractability

Your comparison table looks great in the browser. But it's built with divs and CSS Grid, so ChatGPT sees a blob of text. Here's what that costs you.

Intermediate·5 min readRead guide →