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Run an AEO audit by checking, in order, whether priority pages are accessible and eligible for search, whether they answer real audience questions well, and whether you can measure changes over time. AEO is a useful label for this work, not a separate standardized Google discipline: Google describes optimization for its generative-AI search features as part of SEO and the wider search experience.
What does an AEO audit check?
An answer-engine optimization (AEO) audit examines whether a site’s pages can be discovered, understood, and measured in search experiences that provide direct answers or generative-AI results. It combines familiar technical SEO checks with a review of content usefulness and a repeatable measurement plan.
It does not establish a guaranteed route to AI citations or rankings. Google’s guidance says a page must be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet to qualify for its generative-AI search features, but eligibility does not guarantee that Google will crawl, index, or serve it. See Google’s guidance on AI features and your website and Google Search Essentials.
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- Set the scope. Select the pages and audience questions that matter most, then record the date, market, language, search or answer engines, and exact queries or prompts you will use.
- Verify access and eligibility. Check that each page is public, reachable, crawlable, renderable where needed, and not unintentionally blocked or excluded from indexing. Confirm its status in the relevant webmaster tools.
- Review the content. Decide whether each page resolves the intended reader’s task, demonstrates appropriate depth or first-hand expertise, and adds value beyond a summary of other sources.
- Check structure and markup. Make sure titles and headings describe the page, links can be crawled, and structured data matches visible content and applicable feature policies.
- Record a baseline. Save relevant first-party search performance and analytics data, along with a consistent set of representative prompts and the answers or citations you observe.
- Prioritize and document fixes. Address access blockers before lower-impact editorial refinements. For each issue, note the URL, evidence, owner, priority, and intended correction.
- Repeat the checks. After deployment and time for recrawling, rerun the same queries and inspect the same metrics, recording the date and what changed.
AEO.wiki’s 2026 checklist proposes 10–20 priority pages and 30–100 questions as a starting range, and suggests remeasurement after 4–8 weeks. These are practitioner planning recommendations, not Google requirements or guaranteed timelines. Its checklist also notes that crawling or re-indexing may take days to weeks.
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How do I check whether search engines can access my pages?
Do this before investing time in rewriting content. A page that search systems cannot reach or index cannot benefit from editorial improvements in those results. For each selected URL, work through these checks:
- Public reachability: Open the page without a logged-in session and check its HTTP behavior. Look for errors, unexpected redirects, or access restrictions.
- Crawl directives: Review robots.txt rules and page-level robots directives for accidental blocking or noindex instructions.
- Rendering: If important content depends on JavaScript, verify that the rendered page exposes the text and links search engines need.
- Internal discovery: Confirm that relevant pages link to the URL with crawlable links, rather than relying only on a form, script, or isolated sitemap entry.
- Canonicalization: Check that the canonical URL points to the intended version and that duplicate or alternate URLs are not sending conflicting signals.
- Index status: Inspect the URL in the relevant search engine’s webmaster tools and review any reported indexing issue. A crawlable page is not necessarily indexed.
For Google’s generative-AI search features, the official eligibility condition is indexing and eligibility to appear with a snippet. Google also states that meeting requirements is not a promise of crawling, indexing, or serving. Search eligibility is therefore a prerequisite to check, not a visibility guarantee.
How do I assess whether a page is useful for answer engines?
Judge the page by the audience’s task, not by an imagined formula for AI visibility. Google’s people-first guidance asks creators to prioritize helpful, reliable content made for people. In practice, review each page against these questions:
- Does it answer the question or complete the task implied by its title?
- Does it give enough context, steps, examples, or qualifications for a reader to act accurately?
- Does it demonstrate relevant experience or expertise where that matters to the topic?
- Does it contribute something useful beyond repeating material available elsewhere?
- Are claims current, supported, and appropriately qualified?
Do not add length just to meet a supposed AEO word-count target. Google says it has no preferred word count. Its guidance also cautions against content created primarily to attract search visits, large-scale uncurated automation, and artificial freshness changes that do not improve the page. Read Google’s guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.
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What should I check in headings, links, and structured data?
Use descriptive titles and headings that accurately signal what a page covers. Make important supporting pages reachable through crawlable links, and keep structured data consistent with content users can see. Validate markup against the policies for the specific search feature it is intended to support.
Do not treat special AI schema, tiny content chunks, or an llms.txt file as Google requirements. Google Search Central states: “Structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, and there’s no special schema.org markup you need to add.” Structured data may still support ordinary SEO or eligibility for particular rich results when it is accurate and compliant. Google’s AI features guidance explains what is and is not required.
How do I measure the audit baseline?
Use first-party data where it is available, and preserve the exact inputs so a later check is comparable. Google’s AI-features guide points site owners to the Search Console Generative AI performance report for performance in generative-AI features on Google Search and Discover.
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For each baseline, retain:
- The page URLs, market, language, and date range.
- The exact queries or prompts and the engines or platforms checked.
- Relevant first-party impressions, clicks, or other available performance measures.
- Analytics referrals that can be identified, with the limits of attribution noted.
- Whether an answer appeared to use or cite a page, and the context in which you observed it.
How should I prioritize audit findings?
Separate confirmed platform requirements from independent findings and practitioner hypotheses. Prioritize problems that block access or eligibility, then address content gaps that prevent a page from serving its audience. A third-party score may help organize work, but it is not Google’s internal measurement and does not establish ranking or citation potential.
| Finding type | What to verify | How to treat it |
|---|---|---|
| Platform requirement | Is the condition stated in official guidance, and can you verify it in a first-party tool? | Fix confirmed eligibility or policy issues first. |
| Independent research | What was studied, and does the finding apply to this topic, audience, and site? | Use as evidence with its scope and limits, not as a universal rule. |
| Practitioner recommendation | Does it improve access, usefulness, structure, or measurement for this site? | Test when relevant; do not present it as a search-engine requirement. |
Keep an issue log with the affected URL, observed evidence, impact, owner, priority, and planned correction. Google’s guidance on third-party tools advises evaluating claims against official documentation; Google does not evaluate or endorse third-party services, and using a tool does not guarantee ranking success. See Google’s guidance on third-party tools for Search.
When should I recheck after making changes?
Choose a follow-up date that allows time for the relevant systems to revisit the page, then repeat the same access checks, prompts, and platform measurements. AEO.wiki recommends a 4–8 week remeasurement interval, but that is a planning suggestion, not a promise that changes will be reflected by then. Record what was deployed and when, so changes in visibility can be interpreted against the actual revision history.
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