Built to be cited by ChatGPT · Perplexity · Google AI Overviews

Your AEO Readiness Score™ — is your site built to be cited by AI?

The AEO Readiness Score is a 0–100 grade for how well your website is built to be cited by answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. We measure four AEO pillars across your homepage and a representative sample of your page types. Free, instant, and built for SEO, content, and brand teams.

  • See exactly why ChatGPT and Perplexity aren't citing you yet — and what to fix first.
  • Audit AEO, GEO, and LLM-friendly content across every page type in one scan.
  • Get a prioritized roadmap ranked by score impact — not a 200-item generic checklist.
Free · No signup · ~30sHow AEO scoring works →
Definition

What is an AEO Readiness Score?

Your AEO Readiness Score measures one thing: can answer engines confidently cite, summarize, and recommend your site in a generated answer? Where SEO grades you against Google's classical ranking signals, AEO grades you against the LLMs that now sit on top of those rankings.

The score combines answer engine optimization (AEO), generative engine optimization (GEO), and LLM-friendly content signals into a single 0–100 number. It's the metric your content, SEO, and brand teams can rally around when traffic stops being "10 blue links" and starts being "the cited source in a ChatGPT answer".

SEO vs. AEO vs. GEO

SEO is about ranking on Google's classic results page. AEO is about being cited inside the AI answer above those results — in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. GEO is the broader discipline of optimizing for any generative system that paraphrases your content. Your AEO Readiness Score grades the technical and content foundations all three require.

Methodology

The four AEO Readiness pillars

Each pillar is graded by deterministic checks across your homepage and a representative sample of your page types — articles, products, services, docs, policies, comparisons. Findings roll up into a single AEO Readiness Score and a clear list of what to fix first.

Answerability

  • ·Question-shaped headings (H2/H3 that match real queries)
  • ·Definition-style opening paragraphs LLMs love to quote
  • ·Scannable structure: short sentences, bullets, tables

Entity & Authority

  • ·Brand entity consistency across pages and schema
  • ·Author bylines, expertise signals, external citations
  • ·Knowledge-graph hooks (Organization, Person schema)

Schema & Technical AEO

  • ·FAQPage, Article, HowTo, Product, Review JSON-LD
  • ·Open AI-bot directives (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot)
  • ·Crawlable HTML, llms.txt, content negotiation

Topical Coverage

  • ·Depth and breadth of related topics on your site
  • ·Internal linking, freshness, recency signals
  • ·Long-tail query coverage answer engines reward
The shift

Why AEO Readiness matters now

For two decades the SEO playbook was "rank on Google". Today, a growing slice of every query is answered before the user ever sees a search result. ChatGPT alone serves billions of queries a week. Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google's own AI Overviews now sit on top of the SERP, summarizing — and citing — the sites they consider authoritative.

That citation is the new "page one". If your site isn't AEO-ready, you're invisible in answers about your own product, your own industry, even your own brand name. A high AEO Readiness Score is what gets you cited. A low one is why your competitor is being recommended in answers about you.

AEO doesn't replace SEO — it sits next to it. Most of the SEO fundamentals (clean HTML, schema, crawlability) still matter. AEO adds a layer: structure your content the way LLMs cite. Definitions up front, question-shaped headings, FAQ schema, clear entity grounding, fresh and well-linked topical clusters. Your AEO Readiness Score is the metric that tells you how much of that you've done.

How the scan works

Homepage + a representative sample across page types

An AEO audit that only looks at your homepage misses 90% of what answer engines actually cite. We sample across the page types LLMs most often pull from — and grade each one individually.

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We map your page types

From your sitemap, internal nav, and content structure we identify the canonical page types — articles, products, services, docs, FAQs, comparisons, policies.

02
We sample representatively

We fetch your homepage and a representative inner-page sample so the AEO Readiness Score reflects your real content surface, not a single page.

03
We score every pillar

Each sampled page is graded across answerability, entity & authority, schema & technical AEO, and topical coverage. Findings roll up into one score with evidence on every check.

Who uses it

Teams using their AEO Readiness Score to win citations

SEO & content teams

Use the AEO Readiness Score as the single metric for the LLM-friendly content sprint. Track answerability and schema coverage page-by-page; ship FAQPage and HowTo markup where it earns the most uplift.

Brand & PR

Audit how AI answer engines see your brand entity. Fix author bylines, citations, and Organization schema so ChatGPT and Perplexity confidently name you when users ask about your space.

Founders & growth

Score your site before launching a paid campaign. Sites with high AEO Readiness Scores get cited organically — paid ads on top of an answer-engine-ready foundation compound much faster.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about the AEO Readiness Score

What is an AEO Readiness Score?

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Your AEO Readiness Score is a 0–100 grade for how well your website is built to be cited by answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. It measures four AEO pillars — answerability, entity & authority, schema & technical AEO, and topical coverage — across your homepage and a representative sample of your page types.

What's the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?

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SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is about ranking on Google's classic 10-blue-link results. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is about being cited inside the AI-generated answer above those links — in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the broader discipline that covers AEO plus optimization for any generative system that paraphrases your content. Your AEO Readiness Score grades all three.

Is the AEO Readiness Score the same as the Agent Readiness Score?

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No — they're complementary. The Agent Readiness Score grades whether AI agents can find, understand, and complete real tasks on your site (book, buy, sign up). The AEO Readiness Score grades whether answer engines can confidently cite, summarize, and recommend you. Most sites need both: AEO drives the citation, agent readiness converts the citation into a customer.

How does the AEO Readiness Score check my site?

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We fetch your homepage and pick a representative sample across your page types — products, articles, services, docs, policies, comparisons — then run deterministic AEO checks on each one. We score answerability (clear Q&A structure, scannable headings, definition-style paragraphs), entity & authority (schema.org, brand consistency, author bylines, citations), schema & technical AEO (FAQPage, Article, JSON-LD coverage, robots/AI directives), and topical coverage (depth, freshness, internal linking).

What kind of website benefits most from improving AEO Readiness?

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Any site where you want to be the recommended answer to a question. SaaS companies use AEO to win 'best X for Y' queries. E-commerce stores use AEO to be cited as the place to buy a product category. Service businesses use AEO to be the answer to 'who should I hire for X near me'. Publishers, agencies, and B2B brands use AEO Readiness Score as the metric that drives their LLM-friendly content strategy.

Find out why answer engines aren't citing you — yet

Free AEO Readiness Score in ~30 seconds. Homepage plus a representative sample across your page types. Every finding backed by evidence so your team knows exactly what to ship first.

Are We Agent Ready?

The Agent Readiness Score for AI-first business. Free website audit covering technical crawlability, AEO, GEO, and agent task readiness — weighted for your actual business type.

Product
  • Free website scan
  • Progress tracking
  • AEO / GEO analysis
  • Future audits (coming soon)
Methodology
  • Three-pillar framework
  • Website-type classification
  • Conditional scoring
  • Representative sampling
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