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 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 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.

rarebird.coffee - AEO Audit Report | 63/100

SUMMER 2020 rarebird.coffee

Moderate AI visibility with 33 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: speakable schema.

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.

Moderate 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%3/10+3.0

Original Data10%4/10+4.0

Content Freshness7%8/10+5.6

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%7/10+4.9

Fact & Data Density5%10/10+5.0

Definition Patterns4%7/10+2.8

Query-Answer Alignment8%10/10+8.0

Content Cannibalization5%10/10+5.0

Subtotal71%+53.3

Structure5 criteria

Schema.org JSON-LD15%10/10+15.0

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%8/10+8.0

Semantic HTML55%8/10+4.0

Table & List Extractability7%5/10+3.5

Schema Coverage3%10/10+3.0

Subtotal40%+33.5

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%10/10+5.0

Internal Linking10%7/10+7.0

Sitemap Completeness5%10/10+5.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%7/10+2.1

Subtotal33%+29.1

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%6/10+6.0

Content Licensing4%2/10+0.8

Author & Expert Schema4%9/10+3.6

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%5/10+1.5

Visible Date Signals4%9/10+3.6

Subtotal29%+19.5

Overall Score100%63/100

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

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

7/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

8/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

6/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

6/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

7/10

Verdict

Moderate AEO readiness at 63/100 with significant gaps to address. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Schema.org Structured Data, and Q&A Content Format. Priority gaps: Speakable Schema, Owned Data Density, and Image Context for AI.

Top priorities

Speakable SchemaTechnical+10 pts

Owned Data DensityTrust+10 pts

Image Context for AITechnical+9 pts

#426of 13363

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View improvement plan

How to Improve

Current

63/100

Projected

83/100

35Total Fixes

8Quick Wins

~69hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Create /llms.txt fileAdd ai.txt and content licensingIncrease content depth and structureImprove citation-ready writing qualityPackage evidence for AI enginesReduce extraction frictionImprove server response efficiencyReduce render-blocking resources

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

Reduce document weight

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

critical

medium

Reduce document weight

critical|medium

Reduce render-blocking resources

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

high

low

Reduce render-blocking resources

high|low

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

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

low

Fix HTML structure and meta tags

low|low

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Top Opportunities10

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Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Owned Data Density

critical+10 pts0/10

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

critical+8 pts2/10

Creator Transparency

critical+8 pts2/10

Methodology Transparency

critical+8 pts2/10

Comprehensive FAQ Section

critical+7 pts3/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+7 pts3/10

Answer-First Placement

critical+7 pts3/10

Extraction Friction Score

critical+7 pts3/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

Changes since v1Last audited 33 days ago

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View full comparison →

Criterion

Delta

Helpful Purpose Alignment

6/10

7/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

2/10

3/10

Citation-Ready Writing Quality

5/10

6/10

Add Direct Answer ParagraphsImprove Citation-Ready Writing

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 →

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 →

Criteria2/10

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 →

Criteria2/10

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 AI34

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Score Breakdown

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