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 does the RSS feed audit check?

The audit verifies your site has a discoverable RSS or Atom feed with proper metadata. It checks feed existence at common paths, a link tag in the HTML head, adequate item count, and pubDate per item. RSS feeds let AI indexing systems detect new content automatically without waiting for a full crawl.

What content licensing signals does the audit check?

The audit looks for machine-readable licensing metadata: CreativeWork license properties in JSON-LD, meta tags indicating reuse policy, copyright notices, ai.txt declarations, and TDM Reservation Protocol headers. Clear licensing tells AI systems whether they can quote or reference your content in their answers.

What are conditional audit criteria?

Conditional criteria are checks that only apply to certain site types. Product/Offer schema applies only to e-commerce. Hreflang only to multilingual sites. ai.txt/TDM policy only to sites with substantial original content. Speakable schema was previously conditional but is now an active scored criterion in the 48-criteria framework. The remaining conditional criteria supplement the 34 universal audit criteria.

dayforce.com - AEO Audit Report | 46/100

WINTER 2022 dayforce.com

Weak AI visibility with 30 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: rss/atom feed.

HR & Workforce HR & Payroll 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%10/10+15.0

FAQ Sections10%4/10+4.0

Original Data10%7/10+7.0

Content Freshness7%5/10+3.5

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%2/10+1.4

Fact & Data Density5%8/10+4.0

Definition Patterns4%9/10+3.6

Query-Answer Alignment8%7/10+5.6

Content Cannibalization5%6/10+3.0

Subtotal71%+47.1

Structure5 criteria

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

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%9/10+9.0

Semantic HTML55%3/10+1.5

Table & List Extractability7%5/10+3.5

Schema Coverage3%10/10+3.0

Subtotal40%+30.5

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%3/10+1.5

Internal Linking10%5/10+5.0

Sitemap Completeness5%10/10+5.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+21.5

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%8/10+8.0

Content Licensing4%0/10+0.0

Author & Expert Schema4%9/10+3.6

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%2/10+0.6

Visible Date Signals4%3/10+1.2

Subtotal29%+17.4

Overall Score100%46/100

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 →

Citation Avg

Coherence gate active - score capped at 50

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

6/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

6/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

6/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

4/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

5/10

Verdict

Below-average AEO readiness at 46/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Q&A Content Format, and Sitemap Completeness. Priority gaps: RSS/Atom Feed, Content Licensing & AI Permissions, and Speakable Schema. Topic coherence is 3/10, which caps the overall score at 50. Focusing content on core expertise areas is the single highest-impact improvement.

Top priorities

RSS/Atom FeedDiscovery+10 pts

Content Licensing & AI PermissionsDiscovery+10 pts

Speakable SchemaTechnical+10 pts

#7532of 13362

#106of 173 in HR & Workforce

Ahead of you

seenculture.com46

innerlogic.com47

View full rankings →

View improvement plan

How to Improve

Current

46/100

Projected

82/100

42Total Fixes

9Quick Wins

~82hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Create /llms.txt fileConfigure robots.txt for AI crawlersLink orphan pages into site navigationAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaAdd visible date signalsClarify entity boundariesAdd internationalization signalsImprove server response efficiency

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

Create complete sitemap.xml

Generate a comprehensive sitemap with lastmod dates for all important pages.

critical

medium

Create complete sitemap.xml

critical|medium

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

Improve server response efficiency

Optimize compression, cache headers, redirect chains, and HTML payload size for faster AI crawler access.

high

low

Improve server response efficiency

high|low

Unlock Full Improvement Plan

Top Opportunities10

Unlock Opportunities

Fix It With AI40

Unlock AI Fix Prompts

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

Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

RSS/Atom Feed

critical+10 pts0/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

critical+10 pts0/10

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Extraction Friction Score

critical+10 pts0/10

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

Direct Answer Paragraphs

critical+8 pts2/10

Content Publishing Velocity

critical+8 pts2/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

Methodology Transparency

critical+8 pts2/10

Answer Capsule Pattern

critical+8 pts2/10

Unlock Full Audit Report

See all 48 criteria with detailed findings and actionable fix recommendations.

Your competitors are already optimizing for AI

Every day without action is traffic your site loses to AI-ready competitors. We fix that.

Fix My Score

Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

www.dayforce.com/cfDayforce - Global HCM Software | Dayforce

F36

content

1,529

www.dayforce.com/cfF36

Dayforce - Global HCM Software | Dayforce

www.dayforce.com/how-we-help/services-and-supportDayforce Services & Support

F30

content

1,433

www.dayforce.com/how-we-help/services-and-supportF30

Dayforce Services & Support

www.dayforce.com/get-startedGet Started with Dayforce | Request a Demo or Contact Sales

F37

content

1,220

www.dayforce.com/get-startedF37

Get Started with Dayforce | Request a Demo or Contact Sales

www.dayforce.com/how-we-help/services-and-supportDayforce Services & Support

F30

content

1,433

www.dayforce.com/how-we-help/services-and-supportF30

Dayforce Services & Support

www.dayforce.com/resources/leader-2025-gartner-magic-quad...Dayforce named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud HCM Suites | Dayforce

F35

content

1,255

www.dayforce.com/resources/leader-2025-gartner-magic-quad...F35

Dayforce named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud HCM Suites | Dayforce

www.dayforce.com/get-startedGet Started with Dayforce | Request a Demo or Contact Sales

F37

content

1,220

www.dayforce.com/get-startedF37

Get Started with Dayforce | Request a Demo or Contact Sales

Unlock Full Page Analysis

Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

Criteria0/10

RSS Feed Presence & Quality

Sitemaps tell crawlers what exists. RSS feeds tell them what changed. If you don't have one, your new content waits days -or weeks -to be discovered.

Beginner·3 min readRead guide →

Criteria0/10

Content Licensing Signals

You want AI engines to cite your content. But have you actually told them they're allowed to? Most sites haven't -and AI systems default to conservative behavior.

Beginner·3 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

Extraction Friction: The Invisible Wall Between Your Content and AI

Your content is brilliant. AI can't read it. Sentences averaging 35 words, jargon-packed leads, and hidden content behind toggles create friction that makes AI skip you for a simpler source. Extraction Friction measures how hard AI has to work to pull answers from your pages.

Beginner·5 min readRead guide →

Want us to improve your score?

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

Let's Talk

Verdict

How to Improve

Unlock Full Improvement Plan

Top Opportunities10

Unlock Opportunities

Fix It With AI40

Unlock AI Fix Prompts

Score Breakdown

Unlock Full Audit Report

Your competitors are already optimizing for AI

Site Pages

Unlock Full Page Analysis

Improve Your Score

Related Questions

Want us to improve your score?