Frequently asked questions.

AEO is the practice of formatting content so AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite it as the answer to user questions. It overlaps with SEO but weighs structured data, FAQ format, llms.txt manifests, original data, and entity authority more heavily than backlinks.

Not replacing - layering on top. SEO still drives organic traffic to your site. AEO drives citations inside AI-generated answers, where users often do not click through. Sites that win both will dominate the new top of funnel.

Each engine works differently. ChatGPT uses GPTBot to crawl; Perplexity reads HTML and structured data on demand. Claude and Gemini ingest from search APIs and indexed corpora. Sites with FAQ schema, machine-readable Q&A blocks, llms.txt manifests, and clearly attributed original data get cited consistently across all of them.

Enter your URL at audit.aeocontent.ai and verify your email. We crawl your site against 17 citation-readiness criteria across 5 pillars (content quality, structure, trust, discovery, performance) and return a 0-100 score with side-by-side competitor benchmarks and a prioritized fix list. No signup or credit card.

Original data means proprietary statistics, internal benchmarks, or first-party research only your brand has. AI engines cite original data because it cannot be found elsewhere. Generic industry stats from public sources have zero competitive AEO value because the AI already has them - removing the brand name from a paragraph and finding it indistinguishable from a competitor's content is the test.

Structural fixes (schema, llms.txt, FAQ format, internal linking) typically lift the AEO Rank within days because the next crawl picks them up. Content-driven citations build over weeks - new articles need to be indexed by each engine, then cited in answers. Most clients see meaningful citation lift in 30-60 days.

For production we connect via WordPress REST API, GitHub App (for Astro/Next.js sites), or a custom plugin we ship. The audit alone needs no access - just your URL.

Yes. We publish anonymized rankings by sector and category and you can see how peers in your industry score. Your individual report is private unless you opt to publish it.

Yes. The audit only requires the URL. No login, no permissions, no paywall.

AEORank is our open-core scoring engine - 5 pillars, 17 checks, weighted scoring, deterministic. It is the same engine that scores audits, benchmarks, and the apply queue. Documentation lives in the knowledge base.