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Run an AEO audit by checking access and search eligibility first, then reviewing content and structure, recording a measurable baseline, prioritizing fixes, and repeating the same checks after changes. “AEO” is a useful label for visibility in answer engines and generative-AI search, but Google describes this work as part of SEO and the broader search experience—not as a separate, standardized discipline.
What an AEO audit can—and cannot—tell you
An audit can identify whether priority pages are accessible, eligible for search features, useful to readers, and measurable over time. It cannot guarantee that a search engine will crawl, index, cite, or serve a page. Google says generative-AI search features use publicly accessible, crawlable content, and a page must be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet to qualify. Even then, eligibility does not guarantee crawling, indexing, or appearance. See Google’s guidance on AI features in Search and Google Search Essentials.
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Use the audit to separate confirmed technical issues from content improvements and practitioner hypotheses. A third-party “AEO score” is not a reading of Google’s internal systems: Google advises evaluating outside AEO/GEO advice against official guidance and says using a tool does not guarantee ranking success. Google’s guidance on third-party SEO tools explains this distinction.
How do I run an AEO audit?
1. Choose the pages and questions to audit
Start with the pages that matter most to your audience and business, then list the questions each page is intended to answer. AEO.wiki’s 2026 checklist suggests 10–20 priority pages and 30–100 questions as a starting range. Those are practitioner recommendations, not Google requirements or universal standards.
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For reproducibility, record the audit date, target market and language, the search or answer engines you will check, and the exact queries or prompts you use. Keep prompts consistent when you repeat the audit; otherwise, a change in results may simply reflect a change in the test.
2. Check whether each page is accessible and eligible
Do this before spending time polishing copy. For each URL, confirm it loads publicly and inspect the technical signals that could prevent discovery or indexing:
- Robots directives and other access restrictions
- HTTP response behavior and whether the intended page renders, including JavaScript rendering where relevant
- Internal links pointing to the page
- Canonicalization and whether the intended URL is the one search engines should index
- Index status in the relevant webmaster tools
Google’s AI-feature guidance says pages must be publicly accessible and crawlable; its Search Essentials guidance explains broader eligibility. Passing these checks does not promise that Google will crawl, index, or show the page.
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- Students build unmatched deductive-reasoning skills as they become crime-solving stars
- Most scenarios have more than one plausible outcome, allowing individuals or groups to broadly interpret evidence
- Includes interpretive handwriting, body language, fingerprinting, and many more activities
3. Judge whether the page genuinely answers its audience
Read each page as the person who arrived with the question. Check whether it resolves the reader’s task, demonstrates relevant expertise or depth, and adds something useful beyond a summary of other sites. Ask whether the page is made for people rather than primarily to attract search visits.
Google’s people-first guidance cautions against extensive uncurated automation and artificial freshness changes. It also says there is no preferred word count. Do not expand a page just to meet an imagined AEO length target. Google’s guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content sets out these principles.
4. Check titles, links, and structured data
Confirm that the page title and headings describe the page clearly and that important links can be crawled. If the page uses structured data, check that it accurately reflects visible content and follows the policies for the search feature it targets. Structured data may support ordinary search features or rich-result eligibility, but it is not a special ticket to generative-AI visibility.
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- Guide students toward a healthy lifestyle, both physically and financially
- This revised and expanded edition adds much more information on work ethic, nutrition, and exercise; updates the sections on sexually transmitted diseases and drugs; and includes completely new sections on preparing financially for the future
- Graphic organizers, self inventories, puzzles, real-life situations, and cloze activities provide creative opportunities for students to assess their own lifestyles and make good choices for the future
- Prepare students for adulthood
- Practical lessons to help handle real life events
Google states: “Structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, and there’s no special schema.org markup you need to add.” Its current AI-feature guidance also says that special AEO schema, tiny content chunks, and llms.txt files are not requirements for Google generative-AI search. Do not add markup that claims facts the visible page does not support.
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Capture the search performance and analytics data relevant to the pages, along with results from your fixed set of representative prompts. Google points site owners to the Search Console Generative AI performance report for performance in generative-AI features on Google Search and Discover. Availability and reporting can change, so check the current tools in your account.
AEO.wiki’s checklist also proposes a practitioner workflow using Search Console, Bing AI Performance, GA4 AI referrals, and a prompt panel. Verify whether each platform feature is currently available to you before relying on it. Keep the same page set, prompts, date range, and metrics when taking a later snapshot. Do not treat a third-party score as first-party search data.
6. Prioritize fixes and keep an evidence trail
Fix access and eligibility blockers before marginal editorial changes. For each finding, record the URL, observed issue, supporting evidence, owner, priority, and intended correction. Label the basis for a recommendation—such as an official platform requirement, an independent finding, or practitioner practice—and note whether you can verify it in a first-party tool.
This makes it easier to direct effort toward issues that are both verifiable and relevant to your audience, rather than chasing claims that promise rankings or citations.
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7. Recheck after changes
Once fixes are deployed and search engines have had time to recrawl, repeat the same page checks, prompts, and metric comparisons. Date the new observations and note what changed. AEO.wiki suggests remeasurement after 4–8 weeks and notes that crawling and re-indexing can take days to weeks. Treat that as a planning recommendation, not a guaranteed turnaround or expected performance gain.
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How should I interpret the audit findings?
Use a simple evidence hierarchy when deciding what to fix:
- Verified eligibility or access issue: A page is blocked, unavailable, mis-canonicalized, or not indexed as intended. Investigate and resolve this before editorial experimentation.
- Content or usability issue: The page does not fully answer its audience’s question, lacks useful depth, or offers little beyond existing summaries. Improve the reader outcome, not an arbitrary word count.
- Structure or markup issue: Titles, headings, links, or structured data are unclear or inaccurate. Correct them where they improve comprehension or support an applicable search feature.
- Unverified AEO tactic: A recommendation lacks clear official support or a way to verify its effect. Record it as a hypothesis rather than a requirement, and do not let a score or sales claim stand in for evidence.
Google also notes that appearing in Search results does not cost money, regardless of claims to the contrary; see Search Essentials. No audit vendor or checklist can promise a ranking or AI citation.
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