Get the Full Evidence-Graded AI Search Readiness Audit
Evidence-graded audits of how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews actually see your site, documented crawler behavior, not agency folklore.
AI search readiness
The AEO Technical Checklist & Audit
Before you rewrite a word of content, your site has to pass a technical floor that answer engines depend on. This page is the checklist; the audit grades you against it with evidence.
What Is the AEO Technical Audit?
AEO readiness is checkable: content present in raw HTML, valid JSON-LD, question-shaped headings with answer-first paragraphs, clean indexability, and crawler access for AI user agents. The AI Search Readiness Audit ($1,500 standard, $2,500 large or e-commerce) tests all of it and grades every finding by the evidence behind it.
The checklist itself
Six checks, in dependency order. Each is testable; none is folklore.
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Raw-HTML content
Your copy exists without JavaScript execution.
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Crawler access
AI user agents aren't blocked by robots.txt, WAF rules, or bot managers.
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Structured data
JSON-LD valid and server-rendered.
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Answer shape
Question headings with the answer in the first sentence.
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Indexability
Canonical hygiene, no accidental noindex.
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Entity grounding
Consistent organization facts across pages.
What the audit adds beyond the checklist
Evidence and priority. Anyone can run the list; the audit shows per-template proof (what the crawler saw versus what you see), grades each recommendation by documented behavior versus speculation, and orders fixes by impact. Delivered as the AI Search Readiness Audit, with the implementation sprint executing the list from $2,500.
The one thing most sites fail first
Raw-HTML content, on JavaScript-heavy sites. If your React or SPA pages return an empty shell before hydration, the content may be missing from what AI systems retrieve: the crawler documentation from OpenAI and Perplexity does not promise JavaScript rendering, and in our audits shell-only pages are the most common failure. The fix is server rendering or prerendering the routes that matter, and it is usually the highest-impact item on the report.
What Pairs With the AEO Technical Checklist?
Check AEO Readiness as Part of the Full Technical Audit
Performance, security, SEO infrastructure, and AI-readiness, in one fixed-fee audit.
Slow, Unindexable Pages Fail This Checklist Too
Manual engineering against real-user field data, not another caching plugin. Fixed-fee diagnostic and remediation sprints measured against 28-day CrUX data.
See This Checklist Applied to Getting Cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity
What it actually takes to get lifted into a ChatGPT or Perplexity answer.
Does This Checklist Apply to React, Next.js, or AI-Generated Sites?
Checking Whether Your Next.js or Astro Build Passes Raw-HTML Content
Server rendering and prerendering choices that decide whether AI crawlers see your content at all.
AI-Generated Apps Often Fail the Raw-HTML Content Check First
In our audits, Lovable, v0, and Bolt apps commonly ship client-rendered shells that may be missing from what AI crawlers retrieve.
Want the Terminology or the Entity-Consistency Context Behind This Checklist?
SEO, AEO, AIO, GEO: Which Term This Checklist Is Actually Optimizing For
A plain-English glossary of the acronyms behind this checklist, and which one to ignore.
Scattered Brand Data Undercuts Every Item on This Checklist
Why inconsistent name, address, and schema data confuses AI answer engines even when the checklist itself is fully passed.
Going deeper
AEO audit questions
What is AEO, in one sentence?
Answer Engine Optimization: making your content technically liftable and factually quotable by systems that answer questions directly, from AI Overviews to voice assistants.
What is the difference between this checklist and the AI search optimization service?
This page is the technical checklist and the graded audit that tests it. The AI search optimization service covers the whole offer: the audit, the implementation sprint, and how AEO and GEO fit together. Start here if you want to know what gets checked.
Can I run this checklist myself?
Most of it, yes, and our guide to getting cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity walks through the steps. The audit exists for the per-template evidence, the prioritization, and the findings that need tooling to see.
Does AEO replace SEO?
No. It sits on top of it. Google's documentation says a page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, which is classic SEO's job.
How long does the audit take?
Five to ten business days for standard sites, like our other audits. Large multi-template and e-commerce sites get a stated timeline with the quote.
What if my site passes everything?
Then you get a short report saying so, and the honest advice that your next gains are content-side, not technical. That outcome is real and we've delivered it.
AI search readiness
Get Your AEO Technical Audit and Checklist Score.
The $1,500 audit runs the full six-check list against your site and grades every finding by the evidence behind it, not a guess.