Guide
AEO checklist for answer engines
A practical answer engine optimization checklist mapped to crawl access, content readiness, and measurable AI answer presence.
1. Crawl access
- robots.txt allows the AI bots you intend to welcome on public paths
- Private routes remain Disallow’d
- Sitemap URL is declared and returns 200 with valid XML
- Live fetch as GPTBot (or equivalent) succeeds on the homepage
2. Content readiness
- Key URLs return meaningful HTML without requiring a browser app shell
- Unique title and meta description on each important page
- Open Graph tags and JSON-LD describe the page entity
- llms.txt summarizes the product truthfully
3. Answer readiness
- Public pages exist for your top category questions
- Facts are quotable: pricing model, who it’s for, differentiators
- Brand and product names are consistent across the site
- Comparisons and FAQs use plain language buyers actually ask
4. Measurement
- Run a baseline scan before a large content rewrite
- Track mention, recommendation, and citation rates separately
- Watch competitor appearances for share of voice
- Re-scan after shipping fixes—see how to measure AI visibility
FAQ
How often should I run this checklist?
After major site or robots changes, and on a monthly cadence if AI visibility is a KPI. Buy a Visibility Scan credit whenever you need a fresh measurement.
Is AEO different from GEO?
In practice the terms overlap heavily. AEO emphasizes answer engines; GEO emphasizes generative engines. BatSignal measures the shared crawl and answer evidence underneath both labels.