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.

nash.ai - AEO Audit Report | 47/100

SUMMER 2021 nash.ai

Weak AI visibility with 34 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: rss/atom feed.

E-commerce E-commerce 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%5/10+7.5

FAQ Sections10%2/10+2.0

Original Data10%10/10+10.0

Content Freshness7%8/10+5.6

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%4/10+2.8

Fact & Data Density5%10/10+5.0

Definition Patterns4%7/10+2.8

Query-Answer Alignment8%7/10+5.6

Content Cannibalization5%5/10+2.5

Subtotal71%+43.8

Structure5 criteria

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

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%9/10+9.0

Semantic HTML55%7/10+3.5

Table & List Extractability7%9/10+6.3

Schema Coverage3%10/10+3.0

Subtotal40%+35.3

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%5/10+2.5

Internal Linking10%5/10+5.0

Sitemap Completeness5%9/10+4.5

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+22.0

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%6/10+6.0

Content Licensing4%0/10+0.0

Author & Expert Schema4%10/10+4.0

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%10/10+3.0

Visible Date Signals4%10/10+4.0

Subtotal29%+21.0

Overall Score100%47/100

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 →

↓6 since v1

Citation Avg

Coherence gate active - score capped at 50

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

7/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

6/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

5/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

6/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

7/10

Verdict

Below-average AEO readiness at 47/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Original Data & Expert Analysis, and Author & Expert Schema. 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

#6997of 13362

#92of 237 in E-commerce

Ahead of you

holisticly.co47

madewithblackculture.com47

View full rankings →

View improvement plan

How to Improve

Current

47/100

Projected

81/100

44Total Fixes

11Quick Wins

~85hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Create /llms.txt fileAdd question-based headingsConfigure robots.txt for AI crawlersAdd direct answer paragraphsAdd ai.txt and content licensingEnhance author and expert schemaFix canonical URL strategyImprove query-answer alignmentAdd visible date signalsClarify entity boundariesReduce extraction friction

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

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

Fix canonical URL strategy

Add rel="canonical" tags to all pages to prevent duplicate content confusion.

critical

low

Fix canonical URL strategy

critical|low

Create complete sitemap.xml

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

medium

low

Create complete sitemap.xml

medium|low

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Top Opportunities10

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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

Owned Data Density

critical+10 pts0/10

Creator Transparency

critical+9 pts1/10

Comprehensive FAQ Section

critical+8 pts2/10

Image Context for AI

critical+8 pts2/10

Answer Capsule Pattern

critical+8 pts2/10

Topic Coherence

critical+7 pts3/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+7 pts3/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

www.nash.ai/portal/payment-termsPayment Terms

D40

blog

6,221

www.nash.ai/portal/payment-termsD40

Payment Terms

www.nash.ai/blogBlog — Nash

F34

blog

1,361

www.nash.ai/blogF34

Blog — Nash

www.nash.ai/orchestrateOrchestrate | Delivery Orchestration and Management | Nash

F34

blog

1,102

www.nash.ai/orchestrateF34

Orchestrate | Delivery Orchestration and Management | Nash

www.nash.ai/shopifyShopify Fulfillment Made Easy | Local Delivery, PIckup & Shipping with Nash

F37

content

875

www.nash.ai/shopifyF37

Shopify Fulfillment Made Easy | Local Delivery, PIckup & Shipping with Nash

Changes since v1Last audited 30 days ago

→

-6

View full comparison →

Criterion

Delta

llms.txt File

0/10

10/10

+10

Schema.org Structured Data

0/10

9/10

Q&A Content Format

6/10

5/10

-1

Entity Authority & NAP Consistency

5/10

6/10

Comprehensive FAQ Section

0/10

2/10

Original Data & Expert Analysis

8/10

10/10

Internal Linking Structure

8/10

5/10

-3

Semantic HTML5 & Accessibility

6/10

7/10

Content Freshness Signals

2/10

8/10

Sitemap Completeness

7/10

9/10

Direct Answer Paragraphs

5/10

4/10

-1

Author & Expert Schema

4/10

10/10

Canonical URL Strategy

0/10

10/10

+10

Content Publishing Velocity

2/10

10/10

Schema Coverage & Depth

0/10

10/10

+10

Visible Date Signal

0/10

10/10

+10

Topic Coherence

5/10

3/10

-2

First-Hand Experience Signals

2/10

3/10

Creator Transparency

3/10

1/10

-2

Answer-First Placement

6/10

10/10

Evidence Packaging

6/10

5/10

-1

Entity Disambiguation

2/10

6/10

Extraction Friction Score

3/10

5/10

Image Context for AI

1/10

2/10

Page Speed: Server Response

7/10

6/10

-1

Page Speed: Load Blockers

6/10

3/10

-3

Page Speed: Page Size

8/10

7/10

-1

Owned Data Density

6/10

0/10

-6

Sentence Atomicity

4/10

8/10

Add Owned Data SignalsRestructure Content as Q&AImprove Internal Linking ArchitecturePackage Evidence for AIAdd Content Freshness SignalsAdd Entity DisambiguationAdd Schema.org Structured DataStrengthen Entity Authority (NAP)

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 →

Criteria1/10

Creator Transparency: Show Who Wrote This and Why They Are Qualified

Anonymous content is untrusted content. AI engines check for author bylines, bio links, reviewer credits, and Person schema to decide whether a page comes from a credible creator. Creator Transparency measures how clearly your content identifies its authors and their qualifications.

Beginner·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 AI36

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Score Breakdown

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