You run a site audit, get back a score, and have no idea what actually moved the number. A 62 out of 100 tells you something is wrong but not what to fix first, and guessing burns a week of edits that might not touch the real problem. That gap between "here is a score" and "here is what to do about it" is where most audit tools stop being useful.
AskEO is an AI-powered SEO and AEO audit tool that grades a page in about 30 seconds and reports two separate scores: one for classic SEO, one for AI-answer readiness. An AEO audit score is a machine-checkable measure of whether an AI search engine can read, parse, and safely quote a page — separate from whether Google would rank it. Understanding what feeds each score is the difference between fixing the right five things and reshuffling content that was never the problem.
What Does an SEO and AEO Audit Actually Check?
Every audit run pulls the same raw material: the page's HTML, its meta tags, any JSON-LD schema on the page, the heading structure, the site's robots.txt rules, and Core Web Vitals data from Google PageSpeed Insights. That structured data then gets split two ways. Some signals — title tags, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, page speed — feed the SEO score, because they are what a traditional search crawler and ranking algorithm evaluate. Other signals — JSON-LD schema, question-shaped headings, AI crawler permissions, llms.txt — feed the AEO score, because they are what an AI system needs before it will quote a page as a source.
| Signal checked | Feeds SEO score | Feeds AEO score |
|---|---|---|
| Title tag and meta description | Yes | No |
| Heading structure and question-shaped H2s | Partial | Yes |
| JSON-LD schema (FAQPage, Organization) | Partial | Yes |
| robots.txt AI crawler allow rules | No | Yes |
| llms.txt presence | No | Yes |
| Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) | Yes | No |
Why Do Two Similar Pages Get Different AEO Scores?
Two pages with near-identical content can land on opposite ends of the AEO scale because the score checks structure, not word count. A page that answers its own H2 heading in the first two sentences, wraps a FAQ section in FAQPage schema, and sits behind a robots.txt that explicitly allows GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot will score high even if the writing is plain. A page with better prose but a robots.txt that blocks AI crawlers by omission, no schema, and headings that read like ad copy will score low regardless of how well-researched the content is. The AEO score is asking one question: can an AI system extract a clean, attributable answer from this page without guessing at context.
What Does the SEO Score Weigh Most Heavily?
The SEO score leans on the checks a classic search crawler has relied on for years: whether the title tag contains the primary keyword, whether the meta description is written and within length, whether headings follow a logical H1-H2-H3 order, and whether Core Web Vitals are healthy. AskEO pulls Core Web Vitals — LCP for load speed, CLS for visual stability, and INP for responsiveness — directly from Google PageSpeed Insights and factors them into the SEO score, since Google has confirmed these metrics influence ranking. A page can have excellent AEO structure and still score low on SEO if it loads slowly or skips a meta description.
Once you can see the two scores side by side, the fix list writes itself: an SEO problem needs a copywriting or performance fix, an AEO problem needs a structural or permissions fix, and conflating the two is how audits turn into a vague to-do list nobody finishes.
A free scan already returns both full scores and every detected issue. Where it stops is prescriptive: it tells you a check failed, not the exact fix in your site's own language. AskEO Pro closes that gap with AI-written fix instructions and copy-paste prompts for each failed check, plus an indexing guide for getting listed with AI crawlers. If you are past the point of wanting a score and want the checklist that gets you to a passing one, that is what the paid tier is for — see the plans and what each one includes.
How Do You Raise a Low AEO Score?
The fixes cluster into a short, ordered sequence. Do them in this order, because later steps depend on earlier ones being in place.
- Open robots.txt and explicitly Allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and Applebot-Extended — a missing Allow line is read as a block.
- Publish an llms.txt file at the site root summarizing what the site does, in the same spirit as robots.txt but written for AI agents instead of crawlers.
- Rewrite at least three section headings as literal questions a person would type, and answer each one in the first two sentences beneath it.
- Add FAQPage JSON-LD schema around any existing FAQ content, or add a short FAQ section if one does not exist.
- Re-run the audit and compare the new AEO score against the first one to confirm which fix moved the needle.
Is Paying for Audit History Worth It If the Free Scan Already Works?
The honest objection here is that the free tier already returns full SEO and AEO scores plus every detected issue, so paying can feel redundant if all you wanted was a diagnosis. That is a fair read of the free plan. What it does not include is the AI-written fix instructions, the indexing guide, or historical score tracking across audits, so you can see whether last month's fix actually moved the number or whether the change coincided with something else on the page. If you only need one score once, the free tier covers it. If you are iterating on a site over months, the tracking is what tells you the fixes are working instead of guessing. Every paid plan also carries a 7-day money-back guarantee, so testing it does not lock you into a decision you cannot undo.
What Should You Do With This Right Now?
Run a free audit on your own homepage and read the SEO and AEO scores separately before you touch anything. Three lifetime homepage scans are included at no cost, which is enough to check a baseline, apply the robots.txt and schema fixes above, and re-check the result. Create a free account and run your first audit — it takes about the same 30 seconds the tool needs to grade the page.
What is the difference between an SEO score and an AEO score?
An SEO score measures classic ranking signals like title tags, meta descriptions, heading order, and Core Web Vitals. An AEO score measures whether an AI system can read and safely quote the page, based on JSON-LD schema, question-shaped headings, and AI crawler permissions in robots.txt. A page can score well on one and poorly on the other because the two scores check different things.
Why did my AEO score drop even though I did not change the content?
The most common cause is a robots.txt change, intentional or not, that removed or narrowed an Allow rule for an AI crawler user agent. Since the AEO score checks crawler permissions directly, a single edited line in robots.txt can move the score without any change to the page's visible content.
Does Core Web Vitals affect my AEO score?
No. Core Web Vitals — LCP, CLS, and INP — are pulled from Google PageSpeed Insights and factored into the SEO score because Google has confirmed they influence search ranking. The AEO score instead checks schema, heading structure, and AI crawler access, which are unrelated to page load performance.
How many times should I re-run an audit after making fixes?
Run it once immediately after each fix to confirm the specific change moved the score you expected, rather than batching five fixes and re-checking once. Running fixes one at a time and re-auditing after each makes it clear which change worked and which one did nothing.
Can a page have a perfect SEO score and a poor AEO score at the same time?
Yes. A well-optimized page with strong title tags, fast load times, and clean headings can still score poorly on AEO if it lacks JSON-LD schema, does not explicitly allow AI crawlers in robots.txt, or has no llms.txt file. The two scores are independent, which is why AskEO reports them separately instead of blending them into one number.