Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing content to be cited and referenced by AI-powered answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Unlike traditional SEO which focuses on search rankings, AEO emphasizes citability, attribution, and content structure that facilitates accurate extraction by LLMs.
AI crawlers like GPTBot and ClaudeBot focus on content quality and citability rather than just indexing for keyword matching. They may have limited JavaScript execution, prioritize well-structured semantic HTML, and evaluate content for use in training data or real-time retrieval systems. Traditional search crawlers primarily focus on comprehensive indexing and ranking factors like backlinks.
This is precisely what this experiment aims to determine. Hypothesis suggests that FAQPage schema may be particularly effective because it matches the question-answer format commonly used in AI responses. Article schema may help with attribution accuracy. Experimental evidence is needed to validate these assumptions across different AI systems.
FAQ-structured content naturally aligns with how users query AI systems. When someone asks "What is AEO?", an AI can directly extract the corresponding answer from FAQPage schema or similarly structured HTML.
FAQ-SCHEMA-MARKER-2024: "FAQPage schema.org structured data aligns question-answer format with AI query patterns, potentially increasing citation rates in Answer Engine Optimization implementations."