How I Run An AEO Audit In 10 Steps (Copy My Scorecard)

An AEO audit is a structured check of whether AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google's AI Overviews mention your brand, cite your pages and describe you accurately.

AEO stands for answer engine optimisation, and the audit is simply the "before" photo you need before you change anything.

If you'd rather not run it alone, book a free SEO strategy session and my team will walk through your AI visibility with you.

This page is the operator's version, so it gives you the exact ten steps I'd run, in order, with the logs and the scorecard.

By the end you'll have a scored baseline and a short list of fixes ranked by how much they matter.

What Is An AEO Audit, In Plain English?

An AEO audit answers one question, which is "when my buyers ask an AI tool for help, does the answer include me?"

A classic SEO audit measures rankings, links and technical health, while an AEO audit measures the brands an AI names, the sources it cites and the facts it states.

The two overlap a lot, because AI answers still lean on pages that search engines can crawl and index.

Part of the audit	What you check	Why it matters
Prompt panel	Whether AI tools name you for real buyer questions	This is the visibility you're trying to win
Citations	Which URLs the answers cite as sources	It shows which pages and third-party sites the AI trusts
Accuracy	Whether the facts the AI states about you are right	A wrong price or service in an AI answer costs you enquiries
Crawl access	Whether the AI crawlers are allowed to read your site	A blocked crawler can't cite you
Entity facts	Whether your name, services and proof match everywhere	Conflicting facts make you harder to describe
Third-party coverage	Whether you appear on the sites the AI cites	AI platforms look for consistent signals across the wider web
Answer-shaped content	Whether your pages open with a direct answer	A clear first sentence is easy for an AI to lift
Schema basics	Whether your structured data matches the visible text	Mismatched markup is a basic SEO fault

If you want the wider context on the discipline itself, my King of AEO breakdown explains how I think about answer engines day to day.

What You Need Before You Start The AEO Audit

You need less than you think, and none of it is a paid tool.

You need a spreadsheet with two tabs, one for the prompt log and one for the scorecard.
You need access to the AI tools your buyers actually use, which for most businesses means ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google Search.
You need Google Search Console access for your site, because it shows the questions people already search.
You need a list of three competitors who win the deals you want.
You need about three to four hours for a first pass on 20 prompts, and longer if you go to 50.

🔥 Want my exact How I Run An AEO Audit In 10 Steps setup, step by step? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get step-by-step video trainings, my installable Agent OS and four coaching calls a week with 3,400+ members building real automations. → Join the AI Profit Boardroom

Step 1: Write 20 To 50 Buyer Prompts

The prompts are the heart of the audit, so I spend the most time here.

A prompt is the exact question a buyer types into an AI tool, written the way a buyer would actually type it.

I start with 20 prompts for a small business and go up to 50 when a brand sells several services or works in several markets.

I split them across six types so the audit covers the whole buying journey.

Prompt type	Example you can adapt
Best-of	What is the best [service] for [type of customer]?
Comparison	Is [your brand] or [competitor] better for [job]?
Problem	How do I fix [problem your product solves]?
Brand	What is [your brand] and is it any good?
Alternatives	What are the best alternatives to [competitor]?
Local or niche	Who is the best [service] in [city or industry]?

I pull real wording from Search Console by exporting the queries that already get impressions on my site.

My keyword skill scored 184 real queries in one pass on a live run, and the question-shaped ones went straight into my prompt panel.

Step 2: Run Every Prompt In Every AI Tool

Now you ask each prompt in each tool and save what comes back.

I open a fresh chat for every prompt, so earlier questions in the same chat don't steer the answer.

I run each prompt at least twice, because AI answers change from one chat to the next.

I check Google twice as well, once for an AI Overview and once in AI Mode, because Google says the two can use different models and techniques and show different links.

Google also says AI Overviews often don't appear at all, so a prompt with no AI Overview is a valid result and should be logged as one.

Step 3: Log Mentions, Citations And Accuracy

This is the log I use, and you can copy the columns straight into your spreadsheet.

Prompt	Tool	Date	Named?	Position in answer	Competitors named	Sources cited	Facts correct?
Best [service] for [customer]	ChatGPT	2026-10-17	Yes	Third of five	A, B	Two review sites and one competitor blog	Yes
[Brand] vs [competitor]	Perplexity	2026-10-17	Yes	First	B	Your pricing page and a forum thread	Price is out of date
Best alternatives to [competitor]	Gemini	2026-10-17	No	Not named	A, B, C	A comparison article	Not applicable

The "sources cited" column is the one that tells you where to earn coverage, because it shows which sites the AI already trusts in your market.

📞 Want my team to look at your prompt log with you? Book a free SEO strategy session and you'll get a custom visibility plan, a clear AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis that shows why competing brands appear more often. → Claim your free strategy session

Step 4: Check That The AI Crawlers Can Reach You

An AI can't cite a page it isn't allowed to read, so the crawl check comes next.

Open yoursite.com/robots.txt in a browser and read every rule that names a crawler.

Crawler	Who runs it	What the official docs say
OAI-SearchBot	OpenAI	It surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features, and OpenAI recommends allowing it if you want to appear there
GPTBot	OpenAI	It crawls content that may be used to train OpenAI's models, and it is a separate setting from OAI-SearchBot
PerplexityBot	Perplexity	It surfaces and links websites in Perplexity's search results, and Perplexity recommends allowing it
Googlebot	Google	Google says crawling must be allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting setup

I read OpenAI's crawler page, Perplexity's crawler page and Google's guide to AI features on 17 October 2026 before writing that table.

OpenAI says a robots.txt change can take around 24 hours to show up in its search results, and Perplexity says changes can take up to 24 hours too.

Check your firewall or CDN as well, and remember that blocking GPTBot is a choice about training, not about ChatGPT search.

Step 5: Check Indexing And Snippet Eligibility On Google

Google's rule for AI Overviews and AI Mode is short and worth knowing by heart.

Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet to appear as a supporting link, and there are no additional technical requirements.

Use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console on your five most important pages and confirm each one is indexed.

Look for any nosnippet rules on those pages, because a page that can't show a snippet can't be a supporting link.

Step 6: Check Your Entity Facts Everywhere

An entity is just a clear, consistent picture of who you are, what you sell and who you serve.

I write one short fact file first, with the brand name, services, locations, founders, prices if you publish them and the proof you can back up.

Then I compare it against the About page, the main social profiles, the Google Business Profile and any directory listings.

Google's own advice includes keeping Merchant Center and Business Profile information up to date, which is part of the same job.

Every mismatch goes on the fix list.

Step 7: Audit Your Third-Party Coverage

This is the step that separates a real AEO audit from a technical checklist.

Go back to the "sources cited" column and list every third-party site that appears more than once.

Then check whether your brand is on each of those sites today.

My strategy session page explains the reason clearly, because it says AI platforms don't recommend brands simply because those brands publish more on their own websites.

It says they look for consistent signals across the wider web, such as trusted publications, expert articles, independent reviews, comparisons and credible third-party references.

The most-cited sources are the first ones worth earning a place on.

Links still matter here too, and my AI backlink building services guide explains how I think about them.

🚀 Ready to put How I Run An AEO Audit In 10 Steps to work in your business? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get step-by-step video trainings, my installable Agent OS and four coaching calls a week with 3,400+ members building real automations. → Join the AI Profit Boardroom

Step 8: Grade Your Pages For Answer Shape

Take the ten pages that matter most for sales and read the first sentence of each one.

My own rule is that the first sentence must answer the main question directly and stay under fifty words.

Each heading should be a real question or a full claim, so a section still makes sense if an AI lifts it out alone.

Comparisons, prices and steps should live in tables or lists, because that structure is easy to quote.

Every important page should finish with a short FAQ section built from the questions buyers actually ask.

Step 9: Check Schema Basics

Structured data is the small block of code that labels a page for machines, and it is a basic check rather than a secret weapon.

Run your key pages through Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator and fix any errors.

Make sure the markup matches the visible text exactly, because Google lists that among the SEO fundamentals that still apply to AI features.

Google also says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special schema.org markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

On my own sites, every page gets Article schema with the author and date, plus FAQPage schema that matches the FAQ on the page.

Step 10: Score It And Rank The Fixes

Now you turn the logs into a single scorecard that anyone in the business can read.

Score each area from 0 to 2, where 0 means broken, 1 means partly done and 2 means solid.

Area	What a 2 looks like	Score (0 to 2)	Evidence	First fix
Prompt panel visibility	You are named in most best-of and comparison prompts
Citation share	Your own pages or coverage about you are cited often
Accuracy	Every fact the AI states about you is correct
Crawl access	OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Googlebot can reach key pages
Indexing	Your key pages are indexed and snippet-eligible
Entity facts	Your facts match on the site, profiles and listings
Third-party coverage	You appear on the sources the AI cites most
Answer shape	Key pages open with a direct answer and carry FAQs
Schema basics	Markup is valid and matches the visible text
Measurement	A dated baseline exists and a re-check date is set

A total of 20 means every area is solid, so don't be surprised if your first pass scores under half that.

Rank the fixes by impact first and effort second, and in my experience the order usually runs like this.

Fix any crawler or indexing block first, because nothing else works until the AI can read your pages.
Fix wrong facts next, because they are cheap to correct and they hurt every answer.
Rewrite your top ten pages so they open with the answer and carry FAQs.
Start earning coverage on the most-cited third-party sources in your market.
Tidy schema and entity details as you go.

📞 Not sure which fix to tackle first? Grab a free SEO strategy session with my team, and we'll talk through your scorecard, the bylines, reviews, comparisons and research that fit your market, and a plan for traffic, mentions and leads. → Book your free session

How I Measure Progress After The AEO Audit

An audit is only useful if you run the same prompts again later.

I re-run the full prompt panel every month and compare it with the baseline row by row.

Google counts traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode inside the "Web" search type of the Search Console Performance report, so you can watch it next to your normal clicks.

If your audience uses Bing, the free Bing Webmaster Tools added an AI Performance report in public preview on 10 February 2026.

Microsoft says that report shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations.

How My Agents Run This Audit For Me

My Agent OS is a dashboard running a crew of AI agents under one shared memory, and it's the same system I teach.

One job pulls my Search Console queries and turns the question-shaped ones into new prompts.
One job re-asks the prompt panel on a schedule and saves every dated answer to memory.
One job checks robots.txt and flags any rule that blocks a crawler I want.
One job drafts answer-first rewrites with FAQ sections, and a person reviews them before anything goes live.

That system is how one of my brand new pages reached Google page one in 14 hours, which is my own result and not a promise for yours.

🔥 Want my AI SEO workflows and the agent setup behind this audit? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom, I share my AI SEO trainings, the installable Agent OS and step-by-step guides. You'll be learning alongside 3,400+ members, with four coaching calls a week. → Get access here

What An AEO Audit Can't Promise

Nobody can guarantee what an AI will say, so walk away from anyone who promises a mention in ChatGPT or Gemini.

An AEO audit shows you the footprint the models read and how they describe you today, and that is all it can promise.

Where To Go After Your First AEO Audit

If you want a free way to get started, my sibling post on the free AEO audit covers the no-cost options.

If you need to hand the results to a client or a boss, my guide to a free AEO report shows how to write it up.

If you'd rather hire help, my breakdown of what an AI SEO optimization agency should do lists the six jobs to ask for.

My Verdict On Running An AEO Audit

Run the ten steps once, save the dated baseline and fix the blocks and wrong facts before anything else.

Then re-run the same prompts every month, because the trend tells you far more than any single answer.

If you'd like my team to run the first pass with you, book a free SEO strategy session and you'll leave with a visibility plan, a competitor gap analysis and a clear roadmap.

Also On Our Network

FAQ: AEO Audit

What is an AEO audit?

An AEO audit is a structured check of whether AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google's AI Overviews mention your brand, cite your pages and describe you accurately.

It also checks crawl access, entity facts, third-party coverage, answer-shaped content and schema basics.

How many prompts should an AEO audit use?

I use 20 prompts for a small business and up to 50 for a brand with several services or markets.

Spread them across best-of, comparison, problem, brand, alternatives and local questions, and run each one at least twice.

Do I need special schema or an AI text file to pass an AEO audit?

No, because Google says there is no special schema.org markup and no AI text file needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Valid structured data that matches the visible text is still a good basic check.

Which robots.txt rules matter for an AEO audit?

Check the rules for OAI-SearchBot, which OpenAI uses for ChatGPT search, PerplexityBot, which Perplexity uses for its search results, and Googlebot.

GPTBot is a separate OpenAI setting for model training, so blocking it does not block ChatGPT search.

How often should I repeat an AEO audit?

I re-run the same prompt panel every month and compare it with the dated baseline.

A full audit of crawl access, facts and coverage every quarter is enough for most businesses.

Can an AEO audit guarantee that ChatGPT will recommend me?

No, because nobody can guarantee what a model says.

An audit shows you what the models say today and what you can improve, and the answers themselves stay outside anyone's control.

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About Julian

I'm Julian Goldie, an SEO entrepreneur, author and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.

I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.

I started Goldie Agency on my own, and it is now a 7-figure SEO and link-building agency with 70+ people.
I've grown my YouTube channel to 400,000+ subscribers.
I wrote "Link Building Mastery".
My Udemy courses have taught 29,000+ students.

→ Get my best AI training inside the AI Profit Boardroom

Write your prompts, save the dated answers and fix what blocks you first, and you'll have run a proper AEO audit.