Answer engine optimisation
An AEO audit that measures before it advises
Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the work of making AI assistants name and cite your business when buyers ask. A lot of advice about it is untested. This audit starts with evidence, and checks afterwards whether your work moved anything.
What an AEO audit should measure
Six things to ask of any AEO audit
Use this list on us or on anyone else. If an audit skips these, its advice rests on luck.
More than one wording
Buyers phrase the same need in different ways. One wording can make you look better or worse than you are. We use 3 per need.
More than one run
The same question can get a different answer a minute later. We ask every question twice on every assistant.
A margin of error
Without one, you cannot tell a real gap from a lucky answer. Every rate in the audit has its likely range.
Sources, not just mentions
Which sites the answers cite tells you where to work. A mention without its source is hard to act on.
Facts, not just presence
Being named with the wrong price can cost you more than not being named. We check fact answers against your own site.
Access first
No content work helps if AI crawlers are blocked. Site checks run before anything else.
Advice you will not get from us
Four AEO claims we leave out
"Add an llms.txt file and you are done."
We check for llms.txt, but no major AI company says it uses it, so it never counts towards your score.
"We can make AI assistants recommend you."
Nobody controls what AI assistants say. We show what is most likely to help, then measure whether it did.
"Publish fifty new pages."
A plan only has fixes the evidence supports. Three real fixes beat fifty pages written for nobody.
"Your score went up, it worked."
A higher number can be noise. The re-run tells you whether the change is bigger than normal variation.
Before and after
Prove the work moved something
AEO is only worth paying for if you can see the result. The audit gives you a baseline, a plan, and one free re-run within 60 days on the same questions and the same assistants.
Baseline
160 answers, a score with its range, and every answer kept as evidence.
Fix
A ranked plan with owners, effort and ready-to-use text and code. Tick fixes off as you go.
Wait the right time
Access fixes can show in about 7 days, content and sources in about 28. Your report suggests the date.
Re-run and compare
Each change is tested against normal variation and labelled real, within noise, or too early to tell.
Doing AEO for clients? Every fix links to the answers behind it, so you can show a client why it is on the list.
Start with a free AEO baseline
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