Look at the whole business
A strong technical score is one part of AEO. Search fundamentals, useful content, and independent sources also matter. Our 16 checks cover your site; full projects address all four areas.
How We Check Your Site
How We Score Your Site: 16 AEO Checks
See how we score your site.
Our 16 checks score the technical parts of AEO on your site. Each check and its scoring method are public. A full AEO plan also needs strong SEO, useful content, and independent sources that support your claims. We build on search and structured-data standards, then update the checks as AI tools change.
Our Approach
See every check
Our method is public. Buyers and developers can see what we score and why.
Start with search basics
Clear pages, useful content, and credible sources help both people and search tools. We add checks for structured data, AI-readable files, and consistent business details. Google's SEO Starter Guide explains many of these foundations.
Use checks we can explain
Our checks draw on SEO and structured-data standards. We compare them with Google's guidance and results from AI tools, then adjust the scoring and add checks as needed.
Fix what AI can read
We focus on structured data, plain-text files, and clear answers that AI tools can read.
Build proof on other sites
AI uses sources beyond your site, including partner pages, business listings, news, and backlinks. These can support your claims. Our 16 checks do not score those sources; we review them separately in full projects.
Stand out in busy markets
These checks help in places like NYC, where many brands want to reach the same buyers.
What We Score
These checks cover your site. Full AEO work also covers SEO, content, and links from other sites.
These 16 checks cover your site's technical foundations, with the most weight given to JSON-LD structured data. Our guide to schema markup explains what to add. For local work, we also check local details. Full projects also cover search basics, useful content, and links from other sites. Read how each tool finds and uses sources in our guide to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot. These steps go beyond your site. Both client stories show these checks used on a live site.
Page Facts in Code (JSON-LD)
12 ptsChecks JSON-LD structured data, including its types and required details.
Useful Content
10 ptsChecks word count, headings, paragraphs, and lists.
Site Files for AI
5 ptsChecks llms.txt, robots.txt, the sitemap, and Markdown copies of pages.
People and Trust
8 ptsChecks who wrote the page, their skills, reviews, and links that help build trust.
Questions and Answers
8 ptsChecks visible FAQ answers and their FAQPage markup.
Links to Trusted Sources
8 ptsChecks links to useful sources that back up page claims.
Complete Page Facts
8 ptsChecks the required fields and relationships for each schema type.
Valid Page Code
5 ptsChecks JSON-LD for errors, invalid types, and duplicate entities.
Matching Brand Facts
7 ptsChecks that business details match in the page text and structured data.
Up-to-Date Content
7 ptsChecks dates in page content, structured data, headers, and sitemaps.
Text AI Can Read
6 ptsChecks that tools can read the page's main text apart from menus and buttons.
Clear Meanings
6 ptsChecks for short text that tells readers what a term means.
Access for AI Bots
4 ptsChecks the rules in robots.txt for AI bots and use of your content.
Clear Names
6 ptsChecks that people, places, and brands have clear names and details.
Search Basics
5 ptsChecks for one main heading, image text, a search description, and a main page URL.
Search Snippet Rules
6 ptsChecks rules that let Google list your page and show bits of it in AI search.
Google's Guidance
We read Google's guide and compare it with other AI tools.
Google's 2026 AI Features and Your Website guide helps shape our checks. We use it with what we see across other AI tools. Advice for Google's own tools may not fit every tool.
Read Google's AI Optimization Guide
Google speaks for Google
Google's guide speaks for Google Search and Gemini. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Copilot find and use sources in their own ways. We check how each one works so our work can help across them.
The value of llms.txt is still unclear
Google does not advise using llms.txt. We have seen signs that other AI bots may use it and llms-full.txt. The files cost little to publish. We keep them as an extra way to read the site, but their value is not proven.
Look for shared signs
We compare Google's advice with what we see in other AI tools. Shared signs include clear structured data, matching facts, useful content, named authors, FAQs, trusted links, fresh dates, and bot access. We use more than one source to shape our checks.
How We Apply It
Check your site, make fixes, and track what changes.
The 16 checks show what needs work. The Canonry platform keeps the scores and tracks AI answers each week. It links each fix to what we can see afterward. We track ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot so your team can review the work over time.
- Score your key pages with the 16 checks. Save the results in Canonry so your team can follow changes.
- Connect page issues with buyer questions, competitors, and missing citations across AI tools.
- Fix structured data, brand facts, trust pages, llms files, and page structure. Score the page again to check the result.
- Improve SEO and content where buyers need more useful answers.
- Build links and content on other sites that back up your brand, services, and markets.
- Keep tracking AI answers in Canonry. See which tool links to which page and choose what to work on next.