AEO Authority Checker
Will AI engines actually cite your brand?
Check all 11 AEO signals — entity authority, passage quality, statistical evidence, source corroboration, freshness, and more — that determine whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude cite your SaaS in generated answers.
Analysing entity signals, schema, content depth, and corroboration…
🎯 Free AEO Authority Checker
Will AI Engines Cite Your SaaS — or Your Competitors?
Check your AEO Authority Score free. See exactly what's stopping ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews from citing your brand — and get a ranked action plan to fix it.
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Your Free AEO Authority Checker
Enter your domain. Get scored across 11 AEO signals in seconds. No account, no credit card — completely free.
AEO Authority Checker
Will AI engines actually cite your brand?
Check all 11 AEO signals — entity authority, passage quality, statistical evidence, source corroboration, freshness, and more — scored in seconds.
Analysing entity signals, schema, content depth, and corroboration…
Definition
What Is AEO Authority?
AEO Authority refers to how well-established, verifiable, and citation-worthy a brand's web presence is from the perspective of AI answer engines — the platforms that now mediate how buyers discover and evaluate software.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) Authority is a measure of how likely AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews are to cite and recommend a brand when generating answers to user queries. It combines entity authority (how clearly the brand is declared in structured data), passage quality (how well content is structured for AI extraction), statistical evidence (specific numbers that signal credibility), source corroboration (third-party validation), and freshness signals. Unlike traditional domain authority, AEO authority is not about how many websites link to you — it is about how confidently AI systems can identify, describe, and vouch for your brand.
Traditional SEO tools check Google rankings. An AEO Authority Checker asks a fundamentally different question: not "does this page rank?" but "will AI cite this?" The two disciplines overlap — strong structured data, clear entity signals, and authoritative content help both — but they require different diagnostic tools and different fixes.
Why It Matters
AI Is Now Your #1 Sales Channel — Whether You Optimize for It or Not
When a VP of Marketing asks ChatGPT "what's the best email automation tool for B2B SaaS," they receive a synthesised answer with 3–5 recommended products. If your SaaS isn't in that list, you lose the deal before it starts — without ever knowing it happened.
Buyers research inside AI
More than 60% of Google searches now end without a click. Buyers increasingly make software decisions from AI-generated answers before visiting any company website.
The citation gap is wide
SaaS brands new to AEO appear in only 5–15% of relevant AI answers in their category. Brands that optimize properly reach 25–40% citation rates. That gap is lead volume.
Early movers compound
AI engines build entity models of brands over time. Brands that establish entity authority and citation-worthy content today are significantly harder to displace later.
What We Check
The 11 AEO Signals This Tool Scores
Every signal is mapped to a real citation mechanism. Together they add up to 100 points — your AEO Authority Score.
1. Entity Authority
How well-established and verifiable your brand entity is. Checks Organization schema, sameAs links to Wikipedia, Wikidata, LinkedIn, and Crunchbase — the signals AI knowledge systems use to recognise who you are.
2. Passage Quality
How well content is structured for AI extraction. Checks question-phrased headings, direct declarative opening sentences, content depth, and FAQPage schema — the formats AI engines prefer when selecting content to quote.
3. Entity Resolution
How clearly AI engines can identify your brand as a specific, distinct entity. Checks schema name consistency, canonical URL declaration, sameAs diversity across platforms, and explicit entity description in structured data.
4. Statistical Evidence
Specific, verifiable numbers that increase AI confidence when citing you. Checks customer-count claims, percentage-based ROI statistics, AggregateRating schema, and founding date declarations.
5. Consensus Signals
How consistently your brand is described across all on-page locations. Checks alignment between title, H1, meta description, Open Graph tags, and schema description — inconsistency confuses AI engines about your entity.
6. Source Corroboration
Third-party evidence that verifies your claims are real. Checks outbound links to authority domains (G2, Capterra, Gartner), named customer quotes with attribution, press mentions, and case study content.
7. Information Gain
How much unique, specific information the page provides. Checks for generic marketing language, named integrations, differentiation or comparison content, and explicit target audience definition.
8. Freshness
How recently updated your site is. Checks Last-Modified HTTP headers, sitemap lastmod dates, RSS feed existence, and footer copyright year. AI engines deprioritise sites not updated in the last 90 days.
9. Brand Mention Frequency
How consistently your brand appears across on-page locations — title, H1, meta, OG tags, and schema — plus social profile links as proxies for external brand presence and mention frequency.
10. Knowledge Confidence
Composite: how confidently AI engines can describe your brand without contradicting themselves. Derived from Entity Authority + Entity Resolution + Consensus Signals.
11. Citation Probability
Composite: likelihood of being quoted in an AI-generated answer. Derived from Passage Quality + Statistical Evidence + Source Corroboration + Information Gain.
Comparison
AEO vs. SEO vs. GEO — What's the Difference?
SEO, AEO, and GEO are complementary strategies — but they measure different things, use different signals, and require different tools.
| Capability | Traditional SEO | AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) | GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank in Google's blue links | Be cited in AI-generated answers | Optimise full presence for AI search era |
| Success metric | Position 1–10 in SERPs | Citation rate across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude | Share of voice in AI-generated responses |
| Key signals | Backlinks, keywords, Core Web Vitals | Entity authority, schema, passage quality | Crawler access, llms.txt, entity consistency |
| Content format | Long-form, keyword-rich narrative | Direct-answer structure, FAQ schema | AI-parseable, structured, citation-ready |
| Time to results | 3–12 months | 30–90 days for structured data fixes | Weeks for crawler access, months for authority |
| RankSenseAI tool | Standard SEO platforms | AEO Authority Checker ← You're here | AI Visibility Audit Tool |
Common Mistakes
AEO Myths SaaS Brands Believe — Debunked
Misinformation about AEO causes SaaS brands to either ignore their fastest-growing acquisition channel or waste effort on the wrong fixes.
"If I rank #1 on Google, I'll automatically be cited by AI engines."
AI engines select content based on entity clarity, schema, and passage structure — not search rankings. Pages ranked 5–10 on Google are regularly cited in AI answers over position-1 pages with better structured data and more specific content.
"Adding schema markup is complicated and requires a developer."
FAQPage, Organization, and SoftwareApplication schema are simple JSON-LD blocks that can be pasted into a WordPress HTML widget in under 10 minutes. These three schema types alone can meaningfully increase your AEO Authority Score.
"AEO only matters for informational content, not SaaS product pages."
Commercial queries like "best CRM for remote teams" or "Salesforce alternative for startups" are among the highest-frequency AI search queries. SaaS product and comparison pages are primary AEO targets — not informational blog posts.
"You need an enterprise budget to start improving your AEO score."
The five highest-impact AEO fixes — FAQPage schema, Organization schema with sameAs links, question-phrased headings, a specific customer count claim, and an explicit description in schema — can all be implemented in a single sprint with no paid tools.
Action Plan
How to Improve Your AEO Authority Score
Ranked by impact. Fix these in order and you'll move the score — and your AI citation rate — the fastest.
Add FAQPage Schema
The single highest-impact AEO action for most SaaS sites. Write 5–10 questions your customers actually search for, with 40–80 word direct answers. Add this as a JSON-LD script block. AI engines mine FAQPage schema directly as answer candidates — this is the most direct signal you can send.
Add sameAs Links to Your Organization Schema
Declare your brand's identity across platforms: LinkedIn Company page, Crunchbase profile, G2 listing, and Wikipedia (if you have one). These sameAs links are how AI knowledge systems confirm you are who you say you are — and disambiguate you from every other company with a similar name.
Add a Description Field to Your Organization Schema
Write one clear sentence: "[Company] is a [category] that helps [audience] [specific outcome]." Add it as the description field in your Organization schema. This is literally the sentence AI engines use when they describe your brand in generated answers — if you don't write it, they improvise.
Replace Generic Headings with Questions
Rephrase 3–5 H2 and H3 headings as questions your customers search for. "Salesforce Integration" becomes "How does [Product] integrate with Salesforce?" AI engines mine question-phrased headings as direct answer opportunities for relevant queries.
Add Specific Statistics
Replace "thousands of customers" with "4,200+ SaaS teams." Replace "reduces churn" with "reduces churn by an average of 34%." Specific, verifiable numbers are the single strongest citation-confidence signal. AI engines prefer quoting sources with precise evidence over generic claims.
Link to Authority Corroboration Sources
Add outbound links to your G2 or Capterra profile, press coverage in relevant publications, and named customer case studies. AI engines treat outbound links to authority sources as evidence your claims are externally verifiable — the same way academic citations work in published research.
How It Works
What the Tool Checks — and How
The AEO Authority Checker fetches your homepage and supporting files and analyses the raw HTML for the 11 AEO signals above. No login required, no data stored, no tracking.
It checks JSON-LD structured data blocks for schema types, sameAs declarations, name, description, and URL fields; heading structure and phrasing patterns across H1, H2, and H3 tags; numeric claim density; meta description, Open Graph, and schema consistency; Last-Modified headers and sitemap lastmod dates; outbound links to authority domains; and sentence structure of opening paragraphs for direct-answer formatting.
The two derived scores — Knowledge Confidence and Citation Probability — are composite calculations from the other 9 signals, clearly labelled as such. No tool can directly query what ChatGPT "thinks" about your brand. What this tool measures is the on-page evidence that correlates with citation in AI-generated answers, based on published AEO research.
Fetches your homepage + supporting files
Reads homepage HTML, robots.txt, sitemap.xml, and RSS feed in real time — the same files AI crawlers read.
Parses 30+ data points across 11 signals
JSON-LD schema, heading structure, numeric density, external link authority, meta consistency, and freshness markers.
Scores each signal out of its point total
Weighted scoring across 5 direct signals + 2 derived composite scores = your total AEO Authority Score out of 100.
Delivers a ranked action plan
Missing signals sorted by point value — fix the top ones first for the biggest score improvement and citation rate lift.
Fit Check
Who This Tool Is Built For
✅ This Is For You If…
- ✓You're a SaaS founder or marketer wanting to appear in AI-generated product recommendations
- ✓You have an existing website with at least a homepage and some content
- ✓You want to understand specifically which AEO signals your site is missing
- ✓You want a ranked action plan, not just a vague score
- ✓You want to know if AI engines can accurately describe your brand
- ✓You track business outcomes, not just rankings and traffic
❌ This Is Not the Right Fit If…
- ✗You expect a tool to directly query ChatGPT or Perplexity about your brand (this checks on-page signals, not live AI responses)
- ✗You want to check external brand mentions across the web (that requires a paid tool like Ahrefs)
- ✗You have a brand-new domain with zero content or schema
- ✗You want a guaranteed citation rate number (this tool measures structural signals, not live AI outputs)
- ✗You're not willing to make schema or content changes based on results
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about AEO Authority and how this checker works.
Get Your Roadmap
Ready to Start Getting Cited by AI Engines?
Run your free AEO Authority Check — then book a 20-minute call with our team to turn your results into a prioritised plan. We'll show you exactly which fixes move the needle fastest for your SaaS category.