AEO Checker

An AEO checker grades a web page on how well it is structured to win featured snippets, Google AI Overviews, voice search answers, and zero-click results. Enter a URL and the checker fetches the live page, evaluates it on five answer engine optimization criteria - direct answer block, Q&A content structure, featured snippet triggers, answer schema markup, and conciseness - and returns a 0-100 score with an A-F grade and a prioritised list of quick wins.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so search and AI engines can extract a direct answer without the user clicking through. Google's featured snippets, AI Overviews, People Also Ask boxes, and voice search results all work by pulling a short, quotable block from the page that most cleanly answers the query. An AEO checker applies the structural criteria for that selection process to a real URL and returns an objective grade.

Those criteria are different from GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). GEO focuses on getting cited inside ChatGPT or Perplexity answers - earning a mention or a source link in a conversational response. AEO focuses on being the zero-click answer itself: the paragraph Google shows above organic results, the snippet a voice assistant reads aloud, or the AI Overview block that sits above the search page. The structural requirements differ: AEO rewards concise extractable units (40-60 word paragraphs, clean numbered lists, definition blocks, FAQ schema) while GEO rewards cited statistics, authoritative authorship, and quotable assertions.

Five criteria drive the AEO grade. The Direct Answer Block is the most important: a clear, self-contained 1-2 sentence answer to the target query within the first 150 words of the page. Q&A Content Structure rewards question-formatted headings and organized question/answer pairs. Featured Snippet Triggers look for the specific paragraph, list, table, or definition-block formats that earn position zero. Answer Schema Markup checks for FAQPage, HowTo, or Speakable JSON-LD that lets answer engines parse the page programmatically. Conciseness checks that individual answer units are short enough to extract cleanly. Each criterion scores 0-20 for a 0-100 total.

Start with the letter grade and score. An A (80-100) means the page is well-structured for answer engine extraction - it opens with a clean direct answer, uses question-style headings with organized Q&A pairs, contains the right format for a featured snippet, carries answer schema, and keeps individual answer units concise. A B (60-79) has most of those signals but is missing one or two. A C (40-59) is readable but is unlikely to win a featured snippet without structural changes. A D or F (below 40) means the page is formatted in a way that makes answer extraction difficult.

Read the criterion breakdown for the specific fix. Each criterion is scored 0-20: 12 or above is a pass, below 12 needs work. The Direct Answer Block is the highest-leverage criterion - a page without a clean opening answer is rarely chosen for any zero-click format, even if the other four criteria are perfect. If that criterion is low, rewrite the first 1-2 sentences of the main section as a direct, jargon-free answer to the target query. The quick wins list translates the lowest-scoring criteria into specific, actionable edits.