Free Tool
AEO Readiness
Checker
The AI readiness checker that runs 30+ checks across 7 categories. See exactly why AI engines skip your content and get copy-paste fix code for every issue. No signup required.
How it works
Paste any URL
Any public page — blog post, product page, homepage. The scanner fetches it the same way an AI search bot would.
30+ AEO checks run
Discoverability, schema markup, E-E-A-T signals, direct-answer structure, content depth, technical performance, and AI extras — scored 0–100.
Get fix code you can paste
Every critical issue comes with the exact JSON-LD, HTML, or robots.txt snippet to fix it — ready to paste into your site.
What gets checked
AI Discoverability 20% weight ▾
Direct Answer Structure 20% weight ▾
Schema & Structured Data 20% weight ▾
E-E-A-T Signals 15% weight ▾
Content Depth & Freshness 10% weight ▾
Technical Performance 10% weight ▾
AI Extras 5% weight ▾
Frequently asked questions
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)? ▾
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring your content so AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews can extract and cite it. Unlike traditional SEO which targets keyword rankings, AEO targets AI citation frequency — appearing as a source when AI answers user questions.
What’s the difference between SEO and AEO? ▾
SEO optimizes for keyword rankings in traditional search results. AEO optimizes for AI citation — ensuring your content appears as a source when AI engines answer user questions. AEO requires structured data, direct-answer formatting, strong E-E-A-T signals, and accessibility to AI search bots.
How do AI engines choose what to cite? ▾
AI engines prioritize pages with structured data (FAQPage, Article schema), clear author attribution, direct-answer formatting, recent content dates, and accessibility to AI search bots like OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. Pages blocking these bots or lacking schema markup are rarely cited.
Does blocking GPTBot hurt my AI citations? ▾
No. GPTBot is used for model training only — blocking it does not prevent ChatGPT from citing your content in real-time. What matters is allowing OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, which power the live-index retrieval that generates citations. We flag these separately in the Discoverability category.
Is my data stored? ▾
No. All analysis runs on our servers during the scan and results are streamed directly to your browser. We don’t store URLs, scan results, or any page content.
How do I check if my site is optimized for ChatGPT and Perplexity? ▾
Paste your URL into the AEO checker above. It checks the exact signals ChatGPT and Perplexity use to decide which pages to cite: whether OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot can access your page, whether your content has structured data they can extract, and whether your E-E-A-T signals are strong enough to earn trust. You’ll get a 0–100 score with specific fix code for every issue found.
What’s a good AEO score? ▾
85+ (Grade A) means your page is well-optimized for AI citations. 70–84 (Grade B) means you have a good foundation with a few quick wins available. Below 50 (Grade C/D) means AI engines can find your content but won’t consistently cite it. Most pages score 40–65 on their first scan — the fix code we provide typically lifts scores by 15–25 points.
Why your pages need an AEO readiness check
Gartner predicts a 25% drop in traditional search by 2026. Users are shifting to AI answer engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews. These systems don't rank pages. They cite them.
The pages that get cited share specific patterns. This AEO readiness checker tests for those patterns.
Traditional on-page SEO covers keyword density, meta tags, link structure. AEO goes deeper. Does your page have FAQPage schema that AI can extract? Are OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot allowed in your robots.txt? Is your content structured as direct answer blocks AI can quote verbatim?
How the score works
30+ checks across seven weighted categories. AI Discoverability, Direct Answer Structure, and Schema each carry 20% weight. E-E-A-T Signals carry 15%. Content Depth and Technical Performance each carry 10%. AI Extras like llms.txt carry 5%.
Each check has a severity level. HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, or INFO. The weighted average gives you a 0-100 AEO score.
The data backs the weighting. Pages with structured data earn 2.8x higher AI citation rates. Pages under 400ms response time average 6.7 citations vs 2.1 for slower pages. 96% of AI Overview citations come from sources with strong E-E-A-T signals.
AI doesn't crawl like traditional search
Google crawls broadly. Indexes the whole web. AI search bots work differently. OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot build retrieval indexes. They only need pages that can answer questions directly.
If your page doesn't have extractable answer blocks, they crawl it and move on.
Google ranks pages. AI engines extract from pages. A 3,000-word page with no clear answer paragraphs loses to a 500-word page with a direct answer block and FAQ schema. The AI can actually pull a citation from the shorter page.
Trust verification is different too. AI engines read structured data and E-E-A-T signals directly. The question they're answering: "can I trust this enough to cite?" Not "should this rank #3 or #4?"
Not one factor. Multiple factors combined.
Most AEO advice right now is oversimplified. "Add FAQ schema." "Write a direct answer paragraph." As if one thing fixes it.
It doesn't work like that. AI engines evaluate multiple signals together. Trust, quality, content structure, technical fundamentals. Miss one category and the others don't compensate.
Perfect schema but no author attribution? Not getting cited. Great E-E-A-T but blocking OAI-SearchBot? Zero citations. That's why this AEO readiness checker tests 30+ signals across 7 categories. Not just one dimension.
AEO vs SEO
SEO optimizes for keyword rankings. AEO optimizes for AI citation. Different problem, different signals. You need both.
Our free SEO tools cover traditional on-page factors. This AEO checker covers the signals that determine whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews will cite your content.
If your pages have keyword cannibalization issues, fix those first. Competing pages dilute both SEO rankings and AI citation authority. Then run the AEO readiness checker to make sure your strongest page is structured for AI extraction.
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Try itMonitor your AI readiness score continuously
Whistle AI tracks your AI citation readiness over time and alerts you when new AI engines change their ranking signals.
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