About Canonry frequently asked questions

Question 1

What is Answer Engine Optimization?

Accepted Answer

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring a website so AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity can understand, verify, and cite the business when buyers ask for recommendations. It builds on traditional SEO foundations but adds structured data, AI-readable content systems, and entity authority signals that AI models specifically look for when deciding which businesses to surface in conversational answers.

Question 2

How is AEO different from traditional SEO?

Accepted Answer

SEO optimizes for ranked search results on Google. AEO optimizes for getting cited by name in conversational AI answers. The underlying fundamentals overlap (quality content, clear structure, real authority), but AEO adds a technical layer of JSON-LD schema, llms.txt files, and entity consistency, and a measurement layer traditional SEO does not need: classifying AI crawler and referral traffic and monitoring citations across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. Because LLM responses are non-deterministic, that monitoring tracks trends over time rather than capturing one exact answer.

Question 3

What is prompt research in AEO?

Accepted Answer

Prompt research is a methodology where a single buyer intent is expanded into hundreds of related prompt variations to map how AI models actually respond across the full landscape. Instead of optimizing for one keyword, Canonry tests the realistic prompt space buyers use, then tracks which signals on the site move citations across that variation.

Question 4

How do you measure whether AEO is working?

Accepted Answer

We track citation behavior over time using Canonry, our open source agent first AEO operating system, which polls ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity with your target prompts and records whether your business shows up by name. We pair that with @ainyc/aeo-audit technical scoring so you see both the on-page signals improving and the live citation outcomes shifting.

Question 5

What does a typical Canonry engagement look like?

Accepted Answer

Most engagements start with a free AEO audit on a key page to set a technical baseline. From there we run prompt research across your buyer prompts, score your full site, identify the gaps that matter most, then either deliver the strategy as a report or implement the structured data, content, and monitoring directly through done for you execution.

Question 6

Do you only work with NYC businesses?

Accepted Answer

No. Canonry is based in New York City but works with clients nationwide and internationally. Geographic relevance matters for some industries like local services and hospitality, where city level entity signals move citations. For SaaS, professional services, or national brands, the same research driven AEO methodology applies regardless of where the buyer or business sits.

Question 7

How long until AEO results show up?

Accepted Answer

Technical fixes (schema, llms.txt, robots access) take effect immediately for crawlers, but visible citation changes usually take 2 to 8 weeks as AI models index the updates and retrain. Content depth and entity authority work can take longer. We give honest baselines and track results continuously through Canonry rather than promising fixed timelines.

Question 8

Are your tools really open source?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Both Canonry (the agent first AEO operating system that orchestrates and monitors AI citation work) and @ainyc/aeo-audit (the 16-factor scoring engine) are publicly available on GitHub under permissive licenses. Clients use the exact instrumentation we use internally, and competitors are free to inspect, fork, or build on the methodology.

An AEO agency built on research, monitoring, and open infrastructure.

Research, monitoring, and data tools.

Your analytics team

Monitoring and reporting

Open data tools

Everything we build is inspectable.

The 16-factor technical on-site AEO model

@ainyc/aeo-audit

Canonry

Start with the audit. We take it from there.