What is AEO (AI Engine Optimization)?

AEO is the practice of structuring your website so AI answer engines - ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude - can find, understand, and cite it. SEO gets you ranked in search results. AEO gets you into AI-generated answers. Different game, different rules.

Is AEO only relevant for large businesses?

Not at all. Small businesses, local providers, niche e-commerce stores, solo consultants - they all benefit from AI visibility. We've seen smaller sites with well-structured content outperform larger competitors who haven't optimized for AI engines. Size matters less than structure.

Can AEO help with voice search and smart assistants?

Yes. Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant increasingly pull AI-generated answers from web content. The same structured data, Q&A formatting, and entity authority that drive AEO also make your content the go-to source for voice search answers.

What is the difference between AI visibility and AI readiness?

Readiness is your technical foundation - whether your site has the right schema, llms.txt, clean HTML, and entity signals in place. Visibility is real-world performance - whether AI engines actually cite you when users ask relevant questions. You need readiness first, then visibility follows. Our audit measures readiness; our visibility analysis measures actual citation rates.

What does the free AEO audit include?

The free audit analyzes your website across 22 criteria that determine AI visibility, including llms.txt, Schema.org structured data, Q&A content format, clean crawlable HTML, entity authority, robots.txt AI policy, FAQ sections, original data, content freshness, fact density, canonical URLs, and more. You get a score out of 100 with specific findings and actionable recommendations.

tryupfront.com - AEO Audit Report | 11/100

Upfronttryupfront.comE-commerce E-commerce Platforms

WINTER 2023

Weak AI visibility with 3 of 22 criteria passing. Biggest gap: schema.org structured data.

Scoring Methodology

How Your AEO Score Is Calculated

A weighted average of 22 deterministic criteria. Each scored 0-10, each with a specific weight. No AI judgment calls - every point is traceable.

Not on the radarOut 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

Content7 criteria

Q&A Content Format15%0/10+0.0

FAQ Sections10%0/10+0.0

Original Data10%0/10+0.0

Content Freshness7%0/10+0.0

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%0/10+0.0

Fact & Data Density5%0/10+0.0

Definition Patterns4%0/10+0.0

Subtotal58%+0.0

Structure5 criteria

Schema.org JSON-LD15%0/10+0.0

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%0/10+0.0

Semantic HTML55%0/10+0.0

Table & List Extractability7%0/10+0.0

Schema Coverage3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal40%+0.0

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%5/10+2.5

Internal Linking10%0/10+0.0

Sitemap Completeness5%5/10+2.5

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+15.0

Trust Signals5 criteria

Entity Authority10%1/10+1.0

Content Licensing4%0/10+0.0

Author & Expert Schema4%0/10+0.0

Canonical URL4%0/10+0.0

Content Velocity3%2/10+0.6

Subtotal25%+1.6

Overall Score100%11/100

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

Schema.org and Q&A format carry the highest weight at 15% each across 22 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 →

0-49

50-69

69-100

ContentCategory Average

0/10

StructureCategory Average

0/10

DiscoveryCategory Average

5/10

Trust SignalsCategory Average

1/10

Verdict

tryupfront.com shows very low AEO readiness with an overall score of 11/100, despite one clear strength: a well-structured llms.txt scoring 10/10. Most core AI-discovery and extractability signals are missing, including Schema.org (0), direct-answer formatting (0), semantic crawlability (0), FAQ coverage (0), and canonical URL strategy (0). The site appears extremely thin from a crawler perspective (homepage length 114 characters, text length 56, and 0 internal links), which limits AI systems' ability to interpret and trust the content. With foundational technical and content upgrades, the site can move from near-invisible to indexable and answer-ready in AI search workflows.

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#240of 280 overall

#0of 2 in E-commerce

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Scoreboard

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Criteria at Zero16 of 22A large majority of audited signals are missing, creating broad discoverability and extractability gaps.

Sitemap Depth1 URL, 0 lastmod datesLimited URL inventory and missing recency metadata weaken crawl prioritization and freshness confidence.

Fix It With AI

Copy-paste these prompts into Claude Code or Cursor to fix each criterion.

These prompts are designed for projects where you have direct access to the codebase (Next.js, React, static HTML, WordPress, etc.). If your site runs on a hosted platform like Webflow, switch to the "Webflow" tab for platform-specific instructions. Using a different hosted platform? Contact us for custom guidance.

Top Opportunities

Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

Criteria0/10

Schema.org JSON-LD: The Scoreboard AI Actually Reads

Tidio runs 4 JSON-LD schema types. Crisp runs zero. That's not a coincidence -it's the difference between a 63 and a 34. Structured data is the machine-readable layer AI trusts most.

MediumHigh impactRead guide →

Criteria0/10

Q&A Content Format: Write Like AI Reads

AI assistants are question-answering machines. When your content is already shaped as questions and answers, you're handing AI a pre-formatted citation. Sites that do this right get extracted -sites that don't get skipped.

EasyHigh impactRead guide →

Criteria0/10

Clean HTML: If Crawlers Can't See It, It Doesn't Exist

Most AI crawlers don't run JavaScript. If your content loads after page render -behind accordions, SPAs, or API calls -you're invisible. We've seen entire FAQ sections vanish from AI's perspective because of one accordion widget.

MediumHigh impactRead guide →

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.

MediumHigh impactRead guide →

Want us to improve your score?

We build citation-ready content that AI engines choose as the answer.

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Verdict

Scoreboard

Fix It With AI

Top Opportunities

Implement Core JSON-LD Schema

Rebuild Homepage Information Architecture

Launch a Real FAQ Hub

Fix Internal Linking and Navigation

Establish Canonical and Metadata Baseline

Add Freshness and Publishing Signals

Create Authority and Trust Content

Strengthen Crawler Governance Files

Improve Structured Extractability Patterns

Improve Your Score

Related Questions

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