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.

Do I need technical skills to improve my AEO Site Rank?

Some improvements — writing FAQ content, adding author bios — require zero technical skills. Others — deploying JSON-LD schema, modifying robots.txt — require basic HTML knowledge or developer access. Our Knowledge Base guides include code examples for each criterion. For hands-on help, we offer professional services.

What is the fastest way to improve my AI visibility?

Start with high-impact, low-effort wins: (1) Create an llms.txt file, (2) Add Organization JSON-LD to your homepage, (3) Update robots.txt to allow AI crawlers, (4) Add FAQPage schema to existing FAQ content. These four changes take under a day and typically produce noticeable improvements within weeks.

Can I implement AEO improvements on WordPress?

Yes. WordPress has excellent AEO support. Use Yoast SEO for schema markup, create llms.txt via FTP or a custom plugin, edit robots.txt through Yoast or directly, and build FAQ pages with Gutenberg blocks. Most WordPress themes already produce clean, crawlable HTML.

What is the minimum viable AEO setup for a new website?

Four things on day one: (1) Organization JSON-LD schema on every page, (2) a well-structured llms.txt at your domain root, (3) robots.txt explicitly allowing GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot, (4) at least one FAQ page with FAQPage schema. This baseline takes a few hours and establishes the foundation everything else builds on.

s2.dev - AEO Audit Report | 52/100

FALL 2025 s2.dev

Moderate AI visibility with 38 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: comprehensive faq section.

Developer Tools & Infrastructure Developer 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%6/10+9.0

FAQ Sections10%0/10+0.0

Original Data10%5/10+5.0

Content Freshness7%10/10+7.0

Direct Answer Paragraphs7%7/10+4.9

Fact & Data Density5%10/10+5.0

Definition Patterns4%9/10+3.6

Query-Answer Alignment8%7/10+5.6

Content Cannibalization5%6/10+3.0

Subtotal71%+43.1

Structure5 criteria

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

Clean, Crawlable HTML10%9/10+9.0

Semantic HTML55%10/10+5.0

Table & List Extractability7%9/10+6.3

Schema Coverage3%10/10+3.0

Subtotal40%+36.8

Discovery5 criteria

llms.txt10%10/10+10.0

robots.txt for AI5%5/10+2.5

Internal Linking10%6/10+6.0

Sitemap Completeness5%8/10+4.0

RSS/Atom Feed3%0/10+0.0

Subtotal33%+22.5

Trust Signals6 criteria

Entity Authority10%6/10+6.0

Content Licensing4%0/10+0.0

Author & Expert Schema4%7/10+2.8

Canonical URL4%10/10+4.0

Content Velocity3%5/10+1.5

Visible Date Signals4%10/10+4.0

Subtotal29%+18.3

Overall Score100%52/100

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

Coherence gate active - score capped at 55

Answer Readiness

~40% weight

6/10

Content Structure

~25% weight

6/10

Trust & Authority

~15% weight

7/10

Technical Foundation

~10% weight

8/10

AI Discovery

~10% weight

6/10

Verdict

Below-average AEO readiness at 52/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include llms.txt File, Semantic HTML5 & Accessibility, and Content Freshness Signals. Priority gaps: Comprehensive FAQ Section, RSS/Atom Feed, and Content Licensing & AI Permissions. 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

Comprehensive FAQ SectionStructure+10 pts

RSS/Atom FeedDiscovery+10 pts

Content Licensing & AI PermissionsDiscovery+10 pts

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Ahead of you

norra.io52

thecontext.company52

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How to Improve

Current

52/100

Projected

81/100

37Total Fixes

9Quick Wins

~57hEst. Effort

Quick Wins

Create /llms.txt fileAdd question-based headingsConfigure robots.txt for AI crawlersLink orphan pages into site navigationAdd ai.txt and content licensingImprove query-answer alignmentFocus blog content on core expertiseAdd first-hand experience signalsReduce 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

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

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

Add internationalization signals

Implement hreflang tags and lang attributes so AI engines serve the correct language version when answering queries.

critical

medium

Add internationalization signals

critical|medium

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Top Opportunities10

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Score Breakdown

Criteria

Status

Potential

Score

Comprehensive FAQ Section

critical+10 pts0/10

RSS/Atom Feed

critical+10 pts0/10

Content Licensing & AI Permissions

critical+10 pts0/10

Speakable Schema

critical+10 pts0/10

Image Context for AI

critical+9 pts1/10

First-Hand Experience Signals

critical+7 pts3/10

Methodology Transparency

critical+7 pts3/10

Internationalization Signals

critical+7 pts3/10

Topic Coherence

moderate+6 pts4/10

Entity Disambiguation

moderate+6 pts4/10

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Site Pages

URLCitationSiteIn-linksCategoryIssuesWords

s2.dev/docs/introIntroduction - S2

F34

docs

587

s2.dev/docs/introF34

Introduction - S2

Changes since v1Last audited 29 days ago

→

-4

View full comparison →

Criterion

Delta

llms.txt File

0/10

10/10

+10

Q&A Content Format

4/10

6/10

Clean, Crawlable HTML

7/10

9/10

Content Freshness Signals

8/10

10/10

Sitemap Completeness

9/10

8/10

-1

Definition Patterns

7/10

9/10

Content Publishing Velocity

10/10

5/10

-5

Content Cannibalization

10/10

6/10

-4

Topic Coherence

5/10

4/10

-1

Content Depth

9/10

7/10

-2

Creator Transparency

1/10

5/10

Citation-Ready Writing Quality

10/10

8/10

-2

Answer-First Placement

7/10

5/10

-2

Evidence Packaging

6/10

7/10

Entity Disambiguation

6/10

4/10

-2

Extraction Friction Score

5/10

7/10

Page Speed: Page Size

9/10

8/10

-1

Answer Capsule Pattern

4/10

6/10

Increase Content DepthAdd Answer-First PlacementAdd Answer Capsule PatternsAdd Direct Answer Paragraphs

Improve Your Score

Guides for the criteria with the most room for improvement

Criteria0/10

FAQ Sections: 87 Questions Turned Our Score Into 88

Our site runs 87 FAQ items across 9 categories with FAQPage schema on every one. That's not excessive -it's how we hit 88/100. Each Q&A pair is a citation opportunity AI can extract in seconds.

Intermediate·8 min readRead guide →

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 →

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Verdict

How to Improve

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Top Opportunities10

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Fix It With AI40

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Score Breakdown

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