Start with the buying decision
Agree who the assessment is for, what they are choosing and where they buy. A national retailer, a specialist software supplier and a local service business need different questions.
Include the requirements that could change a shortlist: suitability for a particular use, location, integration, delivery model or implementation constraint. Questions about your company by name are useful for checking accuracy. Keep them identifiable so you can also see when an engine chooses your company without being prompted with its name.
The provider should explain which engines and experiences it will examine, when it will collect the answers and where its coverage is limited. That scope lets you judge how closely the assessment reflects your buyers.
What an AEO audit should check
An AEO audit should cover brand presence, company accuracy, competing suppliers, cited sources, relevant page content and the evidence behind each recommended action. Agree the questions and engine coverage before assessing those findings.
How your brand appears in the answers
Look for the actual answers behind each finding. A useful assessment distinguishes a passing mention, a supplier offered for consideration and a link to your content. It also shows the questions where your company is absent.
If a report includes a percentage, ask what was counted and what the total represents. “Appeared in 6 of 20 assessed answers” has a clear meaning. You can then check whether those answers cover the buying decisions that matter to you.
How accurately your company is described
Check the category, customer, offering and important facts in the engine’s description. An outdated service description can lead to different work from a missing product capability or confusion with a similarly named company.
The finding should identify the specific error and compare it with a reliable source. Where the origin of an error is uncertain, the next step should be an investigation or a correction to known inaccurate material.
Which competitors are offered and for what reasons
Ask which suppliers appear for the same questions, and what the answers say about them. A competitor selected for a requirement you also meet creates a useful question: where is the evidence for your capability, and can a buyer find it?
Competitor names alone leave that work unfinished. The useful detail is the requirement, the explanation in the answer and the material available to inspect.
What the cited sources actually say
Follow the citations. Check whether they support the answer and how they describe the companies involved. Include your own pages and relevant external material in that investigation.
Source links allow you to inspect part of the evidence behind an answer. An explanation of why a particular source was selected remains an interpretation unless there is evidence establishing it.
Whether buyers can find the information they need
Inspect the pages associated with important findings. Check that their content is accessible, that the offering is described accurately and that they answer the relevant buying questions. Where a recommendation involves a page revision, it should refer to what is already on that page.
For Google AI features, Google’s published guidance continues to emphasise SEO fundamentals and useful, original content. Advice about other engines should identify its own basis.
Whether the proposed action follows from the evidence
A useful recommendation identifies the destination, the change and the reason to prioritize it. That could mean improving a page, clarifying a company description, supplying evidence for a claim or pursuing an appropriate external source.
Check who controls the destination. Your team can edit its website. An independent publisher decides what appears in its own coverage. Those actions need different owners and expectations.
What a useful recommendation looks like
Illustrative example. The company, observations and proposed work below are fictional.
A specialist software supplier supports installation in a customer’s own environment. Its public product page gives no explanation of that option. In a saved answer about suppliers that meet this requirement, two competitors are offered and the company is absent.
| Part of the recommendation | What the team receives |
|---|---|
| Finding | The company is absent from the assessed answer about customer-managed installation. Its product page leaves that requirement unexplained. |
| Evidence | The captured answer, the relevant page passage and confirmed information about the company’s installation options. |
| Proposed work | Update the product page to explain the supported setup, responsibilities, prerequisites and limitations. Add an appropriate documentation link. |
| Owner | Product confirms the details; the website editor makes the change. |
| Completion check | A buyer can determine whether the installation option meets their requirements and find the supporting documentation. |
| Follow-up | Record the publication date, review subsequent relevant answers and track enquiries about the option. |
The content gap is directly verifiable. Its contribution to the company’s absence is a hypothesis to investigate. Keeping those two statements distinct lets the team act on the evidence while assessing what happens next.
What you should receive
An audit should leave your team with findings it can inspect and work it can assign. Ask how the provider will deliver:
The questions assessed, collection dates and engine coverage.
The answers and source references supporting important findings.
An explanation of where your company appears, is misunderstood or is absent.
Prioritized actions with a clear destination and supporting rationale.
Enough detail for someone to make the change and check that it is complete.
The format should make the priority understandable to the person responsible for doing the work. A page editor may need a revision brief. A partner manager may need the facts to support an external correction.
Using an audit alongside existing measurement
Bring your search data, analytics, customer questions and any existing AI visibility reports. They can help identify which issues deserve attention. A grader or monitoring service may already provide some of the evidence you need; check its coverage and supporting answers before commissioning additional work.
After making changes, keep the dates and the relevant starting measurements. Compare equivalent questions and reporting periods where possible. Record meaningful differences in collection method or scope so the comparison remains understandable.
Review whether visibility changes lead to relevant visits or enquiries. An increase in exposure is useful context for judging the commercial result.