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.

What is query-answer alignment and how do I improve it?

Query-Answer Alignment measures how well your content's headings and phrasing match the natural language questions users ask AI engines. Generic headings like "Overview" or "Features" don't match any real queries. Rewrite them as questions users actually ask: "How Much Does Live Chat Cost?" or "How Do I Set Up AI Support?" Use your visibility report's MISS queries as a roadmap.

How does direct answer density work?

Direct Answer Density (5% weight) measures how consistently your content leads with the answer right after each heading. AI doesn't read full articles - it scans headings and grabs the first 1-2 sentences. If those sentences contain filler ("In today's fast-paced world..."), AI moves on. Lead every section with a concrete fact or answer, then elaborate. This applies to all headings, not just questions.

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.

What is the coherence gate and how does it cap my score?

The coherence gate is a unique scoring mechanic: when your topic coherence score drops below 6/10, your entire AEO Site Rank gets capped at 35 + (coherence_score * 5). A coherence score of 3 means your maximum possible AEO Site Rank is 50, regardless of how well you score on every other criterion. Fix this by removing off-topic blog content and building intentional topic clusters around your core themes.

modernis.com - AEO Audit Report | 45/100

modernis.com

Weak AI visibility with 23 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: speakable schema.

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%2/10+3.0

FAQ Sections10%4/10+4.0

Original Data10%4/10+4.0

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%6/10+3.0

Subtotal71%+28.5

Structure5 criteria

Schema.org JSON-LD15%7/10+10.5

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%6/10+6.0

Semantic HTML55%4/10+2.0

Table & List Extractability7%3/10+2.1

Schema Coverage3%9/10+2.7

Subtotal40%+23.3

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%5/10+2.5

Internal Linking10%7/10+7.0

Sitemap Completeness5%10/10+5.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%10/10+3.0

Subtotal33%+27.5

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%7/10+7.0

Content Licensing4%4/10+1.6

Author & Expert Schema4%5/10+2.0

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%3/10+0.9

Visible Date Signals4%8/10+3.2

Subtotal29%+18.7

Overall Score100%45/100

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 →

↑1 since v1

Citation Avg

Coherence gate active - score capped at 55

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

5/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

4/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

5/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

5/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

6/10

Verdict

Critical AEO gaps at 45/100 - modernis.com is largely invisible to AI engines. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Sitemap Completeness, and RSS/Atom Feed. Priority gaps: Speakable Schema, Query-Answer Alignment, and Content Depth. Topic coherence is 4/10, which caps the overall score at 55. Focusing content on core expertise areas is the single highest-impact improvement.

Top priorities

Speakable SchemaTechnical+10 pts

Query-Answer AlignmentStructure+10 pts

Content DepthAnswer+10 pts

#8209of 13362

#873of 1391 in Finance & Payments

Ahead of you

hikoala.co45

silvercrestgroup.com45

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How to Improve

Current

45/100

Projected

78/100

40Total Fixes

11Quick Wins

~92hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Create /llms.txt fileConfigure robots.txt for AI crawlersBuild FAQ sections with schemaImplement semantic HTML5 elementsAdd definition-style contentAdd direct answer paragraphsAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaFocus blog content on core expertiseReduce extraction frictionReduce 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.

medium

low

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

medium|low

Reduce render-blocking resources

Minimize blocking scripts and stylesheets in <head> to improve content availability for AI crawlers.

critical

medium

Reduce render-blocking resources

critical|medium

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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Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Query-Answer Alignment

critical+10 pts0/10

Content Depth

critical+10 pts0/10

Owned Data Density

critical+10 pts0/10

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

Page Speed: Load Blockers

critical+9 pts1/10

Q&A Content Format

critical+8 pts2/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+8 pts2/10

Creator Transparency

critical+8 pts2/10

Methodology Transparency

critical+8 pts2/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

modernis.com/mds-implementation-torgersonsMDS Implementation - Torgerson's - Modern

F34

content

760

modernis.com/mds-implementation-torgersonsF34

MDS Implementation - Torgerson's - Modern

Changes since v1Last audited 29 days ago

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View full comparison →

Criterion

Delta

llms.txt File

0/10

10/10

+10

Schema.org Structured Data

9/10

7/10

-2

Entity Authority & NAP Consistency

8/10

7/10

-1

Definition Patterns

5/10

7/10

Extraction Friction Score

3/10

4/10

Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

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

Content Depth: Why Thin Pages Are Invisible to AI

A 300-word page cannot compete with a 3,000-word deep dive for an AI citation. Content Depth measures the substance on your pages - word counts, heading structure, and the ratio of deep pages to thin ones across your site.

Intermediate·8 min readRead guide →

Criteria1/10

Image Context for AI: Your Pictures Are Worth Zero Words Without Markup

AI can't see your images. It reads the markup around them. A product photo with alt="image1.jpg" tells AI nothing. A figure with a descriptive figcaption and 8-word alt text tells AI exactly what it's looking at - and that context feeds directly into citation decisions.

Beginner·3 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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