What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)?

AEO is the practice of optimising your content so AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot cite and surface your pages when answering user questions. It involves structured data, bot access, content clarity and llms.txt.

What does the AEO score mean?

The AEO score is 0–100. 70+ means well optimised for AI citation. 40–69 means partial — some engines may cite you. Under 40 means significant technical barriers exist. The score is calculated from page quality signals (60%) and live bot access results (40%).

How does the AEO Checker test bot access?

Our server makes real HTTP requests to your page using each bot's published user agent string — GPTBot/1.2, PerplexityBot/1.0, Googlebot/2.1, bingbot/2.0 and ClaudeBot/1.0. The response (200, 403, timeout etc) is used to calculate an access score.

What is llms.txt and why does it matter for AEO?

llms.txt is a plain text file at /llms.txt on your domain that tells AI language models about your site — its purpose, key pages and permissions. It's similar to robots.txt but for AI models. Having a well-formed llms.txt improves citation probability across all AI engines.

📋 Example Report — Demo Data

AEO Checker Example Report

This is a real example of what the AIPageSEO AEO Checker produces. The report below shows an AI search visibility audit for a fictional SaaS product page scoring 78/100 — including live bot access checks, engine citation probability, schema coverage and specific improvements.

AEO Score example-saas.com/features · Demo Report

78 /100

Good foundation — some gaps remain

This page scored 78/100 for AI search visibility. Strong schema coverage and confirmed bot access are working in your favour. Adding FAQPage schema and an llms.txt file would push you above 85.

AI Engine Bot Access — example-saas.com Live HTTP checks using real bot user agents

Live checks: ✅ 4 confirmed 🚫 1 blocked from our server using real bot UAs

Engine	Bot	Live Check	Method	robots.txt	Score
🤖 ChatGPT	GPTBot/1.2	✅ HTTP 200	HEAD	✅ Allowed	87/100
🔍 Perplexity	PerplexityBot/1.0	✅ HTTP 200	HEAD	✅ Allowed	84/100
🔎 Google AIO	Googlebot/2.1	✅ HTTP 200	HEAD	✅ Allowed	91/100
💠 Copilot	bingbot/2.0	✅ HTTP 200	HEAD	✅ Allowed	84/100
🤖 Claude	ClaudeBot/1.0	🚫 HTTP 403	HEAD	✅ Allowed	47/100

⛔ ClaudeBot is being blocked by your server (HTTP 403) — Anthropic's crawler cannot reach this page. Check your WAF or server configuration for user-agent rules that may block ClaudeBot/1.0.

Page Signals

Title 54 chars ✓

Project Management Software for Growing Teams — ExampleSaaS

Meta Description 112 chars ⚠ Too short — target 150–160 chars

Manage projects, track tasks and collaborate with your team using ExampleSaaS. Start free today.

H1 ✓ Present

The Project Management Platform Built for Modern Teams

Sitemap Health — example-saas.com Good (92/100)

https://example-saas.com/sitemap.xml

✅

Found

847

URLs

✅

In robots.txt

2026-03-18

Latest lastmod

✅

Valid XML

Question Coverage & Schema Density

❌

FAQPage Schema

Not found

✅

HowTo Schema

Present — great!

⚠️

QAPage Schema

Not found

14%

Schema Density

of content structured

⚠ No FAQPage schema detected — this is one of the highest-impact AEO improvements.
Add 4–8 questions with direct answers and wrap them in FAQPage JSON-LD. AI engines heavily favour pages that explicitly answer questions. ⚡ Easy ~30 min

→ Generate FAQPage schema in Schema Builder ↗

AI Engine Citation Probability

Live checks: ✅ 4 confirmed 🚫 1 blocked

🤖

87%

ChatGPT

OpenAI

🟢 Citation Probability

87% Well Positioned

Live server check✅ Confirmed (HTTP 200)

robots.txt✅ Allowed

Cloaking detected✅ No

Score breakdown

Content quality (×60%)47/60

Bot access (×40%)40/40

Citation score87/100

GPTBot access confirmed. HowTo schema detected. No FAQPage schema — add Q&A schema to boost citation further. llms.txt not present.

🔍

82%

Perplexity

Perplexity AI

🟢 Citation Probability

82% Well Positioned

Live server check✅ Confirmed (HTTP 200)

robots.txt✅ Allowed

Score breakdown

Content quality (×60%)42/60

Bot access (×40%)40/40

Citation score82/100

PerplexityBot confirmed. Schema density is 14% — good. Structured data density above 10% aids citation readiness.

🔎

91%

Google AI Overviews

Google

🟢 Citation Probability

91% Well Positioned

Live server check✅ Confirmed (HTTP 200)

robots.txt✅ Allowed

Score breakdown

Content quality (×60%)51/60

Bot access (×40%)40/40

Citation score91/100

Googlebot confirmed. 5 schema types detected, meta description present for featured snippet readiness.

🤖

47%

Claude (Anthropic)

Anthropic

🔴 Citation Probability

47% Low Visibility

Live server check🚫 Server blocked (HTTP 403)

⛔ Fix this first

HTTP 403 — server or WAF is blocking this bot user agent. Check for ClaudeBot/1.0 in your firewall rules.

ℹ Score = (page AEO quality × 60%) + (live bot HTTP check × 40%). Bot checks are real HTTP requests using each bot's published user agent. Some WAFs block by IP range — a confirmed result means your server responded correctly to this user agent string. Scores are calculated estimates, not figures published by AI engines.

Quick Wins to Improve AI Visibility

HIGH

Add FAQPage schema with 5–8 questions

No FAQ structured data found. AI engines heavily favour pages that explicitly answer questions. ⚡ Easy — ~30 min

HIGH

Create llms.txt at /llms.txt

AI language models have no structured guide to your site. Upload an llms.txt to improve citation probability across all AI engines. ⚡ Easy — ~15 min

MED

Fix ClaudeBot 403 — check WAF user-agent rules

Anthropic's ClaudeBot is being blocked. Review your server or WAF configuration for rules that match ClaudeBot/1.0 or anthropic-ai. 🔧 Medium — ~1 hr

MED

Expand meta description to 150–160 chars

Current meta description is only 112 chars — Google shows up to 160. Expand it to include more keyword context and a call to action.

Issues Detected

❌ No llms.txt file

AI models have no structured guidance about your site's content and permissions.

Fix: Create /llms.txt following the llmstxt.org spec with your site name, purpose, key pages and permissions.
❌ No FAQPage schema

FAQ structured data is missing — this is the single highest-impact AEO improvement available.

Fix: Add FAQPage JSON-LD with 5–8 question/answer pairs relevant to your page's topic.
⚠ ClaudeBot blocked (HTTP 403)

Anthropic's crawler cannot access this page — zero citation possible from Claude.

Fix: Check WAF rules for ClaudeBot/1.0 user agent blocking. Add Allow: / for ClaudeBot in robots.txt.

Improvements to Increase AI Visibility

Add Article or WebPage schema

Impact: High — Schema markup helps AI engines understand and categorise your content. Include datePublished, author and description properties.

Increase structured data density above 20%

Impact: Medium — Current density is 14%. Adding more JSON-LD blocks increases the proportion of machine-readable content, improving citation readiness for Perplexity and ChatGPT.

Add explicit AI permissions to robots.txt

Impact: Low-Medium — Explicitly allow GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and bingbot with Allow: / rules to signal clear permission to AI crawlers.

Files to Create on Your Server

/llms.txt AI language model guidance

# ExampleSaaS

> ExampleSaaS is a project management platform for growing teams.

## About

- Site: https://example-saas.com
- Language: en
- Schema types: WebSite, Organization, HowTo

## Key Topics

- Project management
- Team collaboration
- Task tracking
- Agile workflows

## Key Pages

- [Home](https://example-saas.com/)
- [Features](https://example-saas.com/features)
- [Pricing](https://example-saas.com/pricing)

## Permissions

AI models are welcome to index and cite this content for informational purposes.

Related Demo Reports

Run the AEO Checker on Your Own Site

Get your real AI search visibility score with live bot access checks, schema analysis and specific improvement recommendations.

⚡ Run AEO Checker Free View Plans