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.

What role do internal links play in AEO?

Internal links help AI systems map relationships between your content. Topic hubs, Related Articles sections, breadcrumbs, cross-references — they create a navigable content graph that AI crawlers follow. Strong internal linking distributes authority across pages and ensures important content is discoverable no matter where a crawler enters your site.

What happens after the audit?

You get detailed findings and our Knowledge Base guides to implement improvements yourself. Each criterion has an in-depth guide with code examples and common mistakes. If you want hands-on help, we offer AEO Content Optimization services to deploy the changes for you.

Does AEO replace SEO?

No. They're complementary. SEO optimizes for search rankings and click-through traffic. AEO optimizes for AI citations and answer engine visibility. Many AEO improvements — structured data, semantic HTML, internal linking — also boost SEO. Implement both.

What is topic coherence and why is it the heaviest AEO criterion?

Topic coherence measures how tightly your blog content clusters around related themes. It is still the single heaviest criterion in the framework. The scorer analyzes sampled pages, building term frequency maps and bigram clusters to detect thematic focus. Sites with scattered topics (AI, recipes, fitness) score low. When coherence drops below 6/10, a "coherence gate" caps your entire AEO Site Rank - no matter how perfect your technical implementation.

cdcare.ng - AEO Audit Report | 50/100

cdcare.ng

Moderate AI visibility with 28 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: internal linking structure.

Finance & Payments Corporate Finance 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.

Weak 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%6/10+6.0

Original Data10%8/10+8.0

Content Freshness7%7/10+4.9

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%4/10+2.8

Fact & Data Density5%8/10+4.0

Definition Patterns4%7/10+2.8

Query-Answer Alignment8%0/10+0.0

Content Cannibalization5%10/10+5.0

Subtotal71%+35.0

Structure5 criteria

Schema.org JSON-LD15%8/10+12.0

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%5/10+5.0

Semantic HTML55%6/10+3.0

Table & List Extractability7%5/10+3.5

Schema Coverage3%9/10+2.7

Subtotal40%+26.2

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%5/10+2.5

Internal Linking10%0/10+0.0

Sitemap Completeness5%10/10+5.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%3/10+0.9

Subtotal33%+18.4

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%5/10+5.0

Content Licensing4%2/10+0.8

Author & Expert Schema4%5/10+2.0

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%5/10+1.5

Visible Date Signals4%9/10+3.6

Subtotal29%+16.9

Overall Score100%50/100

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 v1

Citation Avg

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

7/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

4/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

4/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

5/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

7/10

Verdict

Below-average AEO readiness at 50/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Sitemap Completeness, and Canonical URL Strategy. Priority gaps: Internal Linking Structure, Speakable Schema, and Query-Answer Alignment.

Top priorities

Internal Linking StructureTrust+10 pts

Speakable SchemaTechnical+10 pts

Query-Answer AlignmentStructure+10 pts

#5195of 13362

#566of 1391 in Finance & Payments

Ahead of you

twsinsurance.com50

reliabank.com50

View full rankings →

View improvement plan

How to Improve

Current

50/100

Projected

78/100

40Total Fixes

12Quick Wins

~75hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Create /llms.txt fileFix HTML structure and meta tagsConfigure robots.txt for AI crawlersAdd structured tables and listsAdd direct answer paragraphsAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaMake pages solve the user task fasterImprove citation-ready writing qualityReduce extraction frictionImprove server response efficiencyReduce document weight

Fix

Impact

Effort

Create /llms.txt file

Add a machine-readable llms.txt file at your domain root that describes your site, services, and key pages for AI engines.

critical

low

Create /llms.txt file

critical|low

Add llms-full.txt with extended content

Create a comprehensive llms-full.txt with detailed page descriptions, content summaries, and topic taxonomy.

medium

low

Add llms-full.txt with extended content

medium|low

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

Ensure clean, well-structured HTML with proper meta tags, HTTPS, and parseable content for AI crawlers.

high

low

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

high|low

Reduce document weight

Trim oversized HTML, excessive DOM nodes, and large inline payloads that slow AI crawlers.

high

low

Reduce document weight

high|low

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

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Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI41

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

Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Internal Linking Structure

critical+10 pts0/10

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Query-Answer Alignment

critical+10 pts0/10

Entity Disambiguation

critical+10 pts0/10

Owned Data Density

critical+10 pts0/10

Q&A Content Format

critical+9 pts1/10

Answer-First Placement

critical+9 pts1/10

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

critical+8 pts2/10

Creator Transparency

critical+8 pts2/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

www.cdcare.ng/cdcare-app-privacy-policyCDcare App Privacy Policy | CDcare

D40

content

3,098

www.cdcare.ng/cdcare-app-privacy-policyD40

CDcare App Privacy Policy | CDcare

www.cdcare.ng/cdcare-with-your-vendorCDcare With Your Vendor | CDcare

F39

content

1,751

www.cdcare.ng/cdcare-with-your-vendorF39

CDcare With Your Vendor | CDcare

www.cdcare.ng/refer-earn-promoRefer & Earn Promo | CDcare

F34

content

1,388

www.cdcare.ng/refer-earn-promoF34

Refer & Earn Promo | CDcare

www.cdcare.ng/5offeverything5%offEverything | CDcare

F36

content

1,250

www.cdcare.ng/5offeverythingF36

5%offEverything | CDcare

www.cdcare.ng/post/samsunggalaxys25seriesinstalmentnigeriaSamsung Galaxy S25 series installment Nigeria

F31

blog

1,309

www.cdcare.ng/post/samsunggalaxys25seriesinstalmentnigeriaF31

Samsung Galaxy S25 series installment Nigeria

www.cdcare.ng/post/samsungs25ultrainstallmentpaymentinnig...Samsung S25 Ultra installment payment in Nigeria

F31

blog

1,300

www.cdcare.ng/post/samsungs25ultrainstallmentpaymentinnig...F31

Samsung S25 Ultra installment payment in Nigeria

www.cdcare.ng/post/buy-hisense-4k-tv-in-nigeriaBuy Hisense 4K TV in Nigeria

F31

blog

1,299

www.cdcare.ng/post/buy-hisense-4k-tv-in-nigeriaF31

Buy Hisense 4K TV in Nigeria

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Changes since v1Last audited 29 days ago

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Criterion

Delta

llms.txt File

0/10

10/10

+10

Original Data & Expert Analysis

6/10

8/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

0/10

2/10

Fact & Data Density

10/10

8/10

-2

Topic Coherence

5/10

9/10

Content Depth

4/10

3/10

-1

Citation-Ready Writing Quality

5/10

6/10

Entity Density

8/10

10/10

Add Entity DisambiguationAdd Structured Tables & ListsFocus Content on Core TopicsAdd Original Data & Case Studies

Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

Criteria0/10

Internal Linking: The Web AI Uses to Map Your Expertise

AI crawlers follow internal links to discover and contextualize content. A page with zero inbound links is a page AI will never find. Hub pages linking to 20+ related articles signal topical authority that both engines reward.

Intermediate·5 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 →

Criteria0/10

Query-Answer Alignment: Does Your Content Match What People Actually Ask?

You wrote a 3,000-word guide on "customer support automation." But people ask AI "how do I reduce support ticket volume?" If your content doesn't match the actual queries, AI can't connect the dots.

Beginner·8 min readRead guide →

Criteria0/10

Entity Disambiguation: Stop Making AI Guess What You Mean

You say "Mercury" on your homepage. The planet? The element? The banking startup? AI doesn't know - and when it can't tell, it doesn't cite. Entity disambiguation is how you draw clear lines around what your business is and isn't.

Intermediate·5 min readRead guide →

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Verdict

How to Improve

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Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI41

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Score Breakdown

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Site Pages

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