AI search is quietly rerouting purchase intent that used to flow through Google. See where your site is invisible to AI — free, in 60 seconds.
60 seconds. No signup. No credit card. 1,168+ sites audited.
Crawls up to 20 pages. Takes 30–60 seconds.
Starting audit...
This usually takes 30-60 seconds depending on site size.
AEO Score
We'll email you a summary of your results plus tips to fix your top issues — free.
AEO, AI SEO, LLM optimization, GEO — different names, same job. Every serious AEO consultant scores against the same four signals. We do too — calibrated against SE Ranking's 2.3M-page study, Princeton's GEO framework, and Ahrefs' 75K-brand citation data.
Schema markup that says "this business exists, here's the founder, here's the address, here's what we sell." Without it, ChatGPT has nothing to anchor a citation to.
We score it as Schema (12%)
Named-author content, dates, original research, consistent depth. AI engines preferentially cite first-party sources with credible bylines and verifiable expertise.
We score it as E-E-A-T (23%)
Q&A-shaped headings, 50-80 word direct answers, lists, tables, grade 7-8 reading level. Q&A format alone delivers a 180% citation lift in published research.
We score it as Content Structure (30%)
robots.txt allowances for GPTBot/ClaudeBot/PerplexityBot, Core Web Vitals, response times, JavaScript rendering. Half the sites we audit silently block the very bots they're trying to be cited by.
We score it as Technical (25%) + Meta (10%)
We can't pay ChatGPT to cite you. Nobody can. Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews don't sell placements, don't have submission forms, and don't whitelist sites. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling traditional SEO with new vocabulary.
What we can do: make your site the cleanest, most extractable, most trustworthy candidate for the citation slot when it opens. That's what the audit, Fix Pack, and retainer all measure and improve.
Real answers to what people actually ask AI search about Answer Engine Optimization. Updated April 2026.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring a website so AI search tools — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot — can read it, extract direct answers from it, and cite it when users ask buying questions.
It replaces traditional SEO at the top of the funnel: AI generates the answer, the user reads it, and only the cited brands earn the click. AEO covers schema markup, content structure, E-E-A-T signals, and crawl-readiness for AI bots.
Traditional SEO gets you on Google page 1. AEO gets you into the AI answer that appears above page 1 — the ChatGPT response, the Google AI Overview, the Perplexity citation.
SEO measures rankings; AEO measures citations. With AI Overviews now appearing on 47% of Google queries (Google Search Labs, 2026), the AI answer captures the buyer before any organic result loads. SEO and AEO complement each other, but AEO is where buying intent now lives.
Three common reasons:
1. Your robots.txt blocks AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot, PerplexityBot) — they literally can't read your site.
2. Your content is buried in JavaScript or has no schema markup, so AI can't extract clean answers.
3. You have no FAQ, comparison, or use-case content that matches the questions buyers ask AI.
Our audit identifies which of these apply to your site in 60 seconds.
Schema markup and crawl fixes can show up in AI responses within 2–4 weeks. Content gap fixes (FAQ pages, comparison pages, use-case content) take 4–12 weeks because AI engines need time to recrawl, evaluate, and update their citation graphs.
E-E-A-T improvements (named authors, credentials, original research) compound over months. The full citation lift typically lands within one quarter of focused work.
Across 1,168 sites we've audited in 2026, the average AEO score is 61/100 and 60% score below 65.
We consider 75+ a baseline for being citable by AI on competitive queries, and 90+ for being the first source AI cites. Sub-50 sites are effectively invisible to AI search — even when their domain ranks well in traditional SEO.
The quick scan is free — enter your URL above and you get your AEO score plus top issues in 60 seconds. No signup, no card.
The full paid action plan is $497, delivered within 24 hours. Includes paste-ready JSON-LD schema, page-by-page fixes prioritized by impact, AI-citation gap analysis versus competitors, and a Fix Manifest you can paste into ChatGPT or Claude Code to walk you through implementation.
Refund guarantee: if your report has fewer than 5 specific actionable fixes, we refund every dollar.
Four moves:
1. Allow ChatGPT's crawler GPTBot in robots.txt.
2. Add FAQPage schema to pages that answer common buyer questions in your category.
3. Write content with clear question-then-answer structure that ChatGPT can extract verbatim.
4. Earn citations from sources ChatGPT trusts (Reddit, Wikipedia, niche industry publications).
The schema and content structure changes typically lift ChatGPT citation rate within a month.
Google AI Overviews pull from sources Google already ranks well plus sites with strong E-E-A-T signals (named author credentials, original research, citations from authoritative sources).
Add HowTo, FAQ, and Article schema. Publish original data with explicit dates and methodology. Ensure your authors have visible bios and external credibility (LinkedIn, published work). AI Overviews currently appear on 47% of Google searches, so this is where most lost clicks go.
No — AEO and SEO are complementary, but the balance has shifted.
Traditional SEO gets you indexed and ranked. AEO gets you cited in the AI answer that appears above the rankings. You need both, but AEO has higher leverage on commercial-intent queries because the AI answer captures buyers who never click through.
For local trades and DTC ecommerce, AEO is where the missed revenue lives in 2026.
A complete AI-search visibility report on your site:
• AEO score with 9 category breakdowns
• Page-by-page issues prioritized by impact
• Paste-ready JSON-LD schema (Product, FAQ, Organization, BreadcrumbList) tuned to your site
• AI-citation gap analysis showing which buyer queries your competitors get cited on
• Content gap list
• Fix Manifest formatted for ChatGPT or Claude Code so a non-developer can implement most fixes
Delivered as a 10-page PDF within 24 hours.
For small businesses without an in-house SEO team, the best AEO audit tools are ones that deliver paste-ready fixes rather than a long technical diagnosis.
Cited Digital ($497, 24-hour delivery) returns specific schema blocks and a Fix Manifest written for non-developers. Free quick-scan tools (including ours at the top of this page) are useful for diagnosis but don't include implementation steps.
Larger enterprise tools like Surfer or SEMRush have AI-search modules but are priced for agencies, not single-location businesses.
The audit alone improves nothing — implementation does.
Most prospects either implement the fixes themselves using the Fix Manifest, hand it to their existing web team, or upgrade to our $1,997 Fix Pack where we apply the top issues for them.
Ongoing work matters for E-E-A-T (publishing fresh original content) and for tracking AI citation rate over time, which is what our $297/month Watch & Update retainer covers.
| Category | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Content Structure | 30% | Question-headed sections, list density, paragraph clarity |
| Technical & Crawlability | 25% | AI-bot allowance, Core Web Vitals, response time |
| E-E-A-T Signals | 23% | Named author, credentials, citations, original research |
| Schema Markup | 12% | JSON-LD type coverage and validation |
| Meta & Technical | 10% | Title hygiene, descriptions, Open Graph, canonical |
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