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.

trypillar.com - AEO Audit Report | 58/100

WINTER 2024 trypillar.com

Moderate AI visibility with 34 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: comprehensive faq section.

Developer Tools & Infrastructure Developer Platforms

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.

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%10/10+15.0

FAQ Sections10%0/10+0.0

Original Data10%3/10+3.0

Content Freshness7%2/10+1.4

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%10/10+7.0

Fact & Data Density5%6/10+3.0

Definition Patterns4%9/10+3.6

Query-Answer Alignment8%7/10+5.6

Content Cannibalization5%10/10+5.0

Subtotal71%+43.6

Structure5 criteria

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

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%9/10+9.0

Semantic HTML55%8/10+4.0

Table & List Extractability7%10/10+7.0

Schema Coverage3%8/10+2.4

Subtotal40%+35.9

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%3/10+1.5

Internal Linking10%8/10+8.0

Sitemap Completeness5%9/10+4.5

RSS/Atom Feed3%10/10+3.0

Subtotal33%+27.0

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%4/10+4.0

Content Licensing4%2/10+0.8

Author & Expert Schema4%7/10+2.8

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%7/10+2.1

Visible Date Signals4%10/10+4.0

Subtotal29%+17.7

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 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 →

↓7 since v6

Citation Avg

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

6/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

8/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

4/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

7/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

8/10

Verdict

Below-average AEO readiness at 58/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Q&A Content Format, and RSS/Atom Feed. Priority gaps: Comprehensive FAQ Section, Speakable Schema, and Owned Data Density.

Top priorities

Comprehensive FAQ SectionStructure+10 pts

Speakable SchemaTechnical+10 pts

Owned Data DensityTrust+10 pts

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Ahead of you

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How to Improve

Current

58/100

Projected

83/100

34Total Fixes

6Quick Wins

~59hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Strengthen entity authority (NAP)Configure robots.txt for AI crawlersLink orphan pages into site navigationAdd ai.txt and content licensingAdd answer-first content placementReduce extraction friction

Fix

Impact

Effort

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlers

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

critical

low

Configure robots.txt for AI crawlers

critical|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

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

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

Reduce render-blocking resources

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

medium

low

Reduce render-blocking resources

medium|low

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Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI37

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Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Comprehensive FAQ Section

critical+10 pts0/10

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Owned Data Density

critical+10 pts0/10

Creator Transparency

critical+9 pts1/10

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

Content Freshness Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

critical+8 pts2/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

robots.txt for AI Crawlers

critical+7 pts3/10

Original Data & Expert Analysis

critical+7 pts3/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

trypillar.com/docs/get-started/what-is-pillarWhat is Pillar? | Pillar SDK Docs

F36

docs

1,029

trypillar.com/docs/get-started/what-is-pillarF36

What is Pillar? | Pillar SDK Docs

trypillar.com/for-llmsPillar - AI Copilot SDK for SaaS | For LLMs

F34

content

569

trypillar.com/for-llmsF34

Pillar - AI Copilot SDK for SaaS | For LLMs

Changes since v6Last audited 8 days ago

→

-7

View full comparison →

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 →

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 →

Criteria1/10

Creator Transparency: Show Who Wrote This and Why They Are Qualified

Anonymous content is untrusted content. AI engines check for author bylines, bio links, reviewer credits, and Person schema to decide whether a page comes from a credible creator. Creator Transparency measures how clearly your content identifies its authors and their qualifications.

Beginner·5 min readRead guide →

Criteria1/10

Image Context for AI: Your Pictures Are Worth Zero Words Without Markup

AI can't see your images. It reads the markup around them. A product photo with alt="image1.jpg" tells AI nothing. A figure with a descriptive figcaption and 8-word alt text tells AI exactly what it's looking at - and that context feeds directly into citation decisions.

Beginner·3 min readRead guide →

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Verdict

How to Improve

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Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI37

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Score Breakdown

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