#3 Foundations of AEO, Part. 1
Without visibility and structure, AI can’t use your facts, no matter how smart it is.
If AI can’t see your content, it can’t use it. That’s the ground floor of Answer Engine Optimization. The foundation of AEO is made up of four survival gates: recognition, retrieval, reasoning, and representation. In our first post, we explained why SEO alone isn’t enough in the AI era. Then, in our last post, we introduced this sequence and explained why most brands fail at optimizing for ai.
Why Foundations Matter: Laying Your AEO Groundwork
Think of your site as a city. Indexability lays down the roads that let crawlers in. Retrieval adds the street signs and house numbers that make your facts visible to AI. Without both, higher-level stages like reasoning and representation never get the chance to kick in.
Google has reinforced the same point. In its Succeeding in AI Search guidance, the company reminded site owners that AI Overviews and AI Mode depend on the same fundamentals: crawlability, indexability, and structured data that matches the page. If your site fails these basics, AI will ignore your content entirely.
Indexability: Making Your Pages Discoverable
Crawlability is the foundation. If AI can’t reach your pages, nothing else matters. Indexability ensures your content, and the structured data it carries, is visible and readable.
Key checkpoints:
- HTML links that work: Every page must be reachable via standard HTML links. Avoid hiding content behind JavaScript or inaccessible menus.
- Robots.txt and meta tags: Make sure AI isn’t blocked by accident. Even one stray noindex tag can make pages invisible.
- Rendering visibility: Schema and structured fields must be accessible in HTML at load time. Server-side rendering (SSR) or hybrid SSR ensures AI sees everything without relying on client-side execution.
- Canonicalization: Correct canonical tags prevent duplication issues and ensure AI attributes facts to the right page.
- Internal linking depth: Key pages should be no more than 3–4 clicks from the homepage. Isolated pages risk being overlooked.
Indexability checklist:
- All pages reachable via HTML links
- No robots.txt or meta tag blocks
- Schema visible in HTML (SSR or hybrid SSR)
- Canonical URLs correct and consistent
- Key pages ≤3–4 clicks from homepage
The difference between AEO and SEO in terms of indexability
| SEO indexability | AEO indexability | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Get pages crawled and ranked | Make facts usable by AI systems |
| Focus | Links, sitemaps, robots.txt, and noindex tags | Schema rendered in HTML, structured fields visible at load, no client-side-only data |
| Success = | the page shows up in search results | AI not only sees the page but recognizes entities and attributes it can use in answers |
Retrieval: Making Your Facts Actionable
Indexability puts your pages on the map. Retrieval adds street signs that make your facts usable. Structured data turns words into discrete, queryable fields that AI can reliably act on.
Guiding principles for retrieval:
- Single source of truth: Schema should be fed automatically from your CMS. Copy and structured data must match exactly. Avoid “schema drift.”
- Clear attribute definitions: Each entity should have measurable, queryable attributes. Examples: seatingCapacity, pricePerDay, fuelType, location.
- Validation: Use tools like Google’s Rich Results Test to confirm structured data is complete and error-free.
- Consistency across surfaces: Schema should be mirrored everywhere your content appears, website, app, or other AI-accessible surfaces.
Think of retrieval like placing pins on a map. Each structured field tells AI exactly where a fact lives and what it means. Without retrieval, AI guesses probabilistically, which can lead to errors and drift over time.
Retrieval checklist:
- Schema present on all key pages
- Structured fields match page copy (no drift)
- JSON-LD validated with Rich Results Test
- Schema rendered in HTML (SSR or hybrid SSR)
Consistency across web, app, and other surfaces
The difference between AEO and SEO in terms of retrieval
| SEO Retrieval | AEO Retrieval | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Surface pages so search engines can index and rank them | Expose facts in structured fields so AI can act on them |
| Focus | Metadata, keywords in copy, basic schema for rich snippets | JSON-LD schema tied to CMS fields, validated and drift-free |
| Success = | Page content is retrievable for rankings | AI reliably retrieves exact attributes (capacity, price, location) for answers |
Parsing: How AI Reads
Parsing helps illustrate AI behavior, but it isn’t foundational.
- Browsers parse HTML into DOM trees.
- Search engines parse schema into entities and attributes.
- LLMs infer meaning probabilistically, not by reading tags.
Parsing shows how AI reads your content; retrieval ensures it reads correctly every time. Without structured data, AI may approximate meaning, but it can drift. Retrieval grounds your facts in a stable, machine-readable layer
The Takeaway: Ground Floor of AEO
Indexability and retrieval are part of the AEO foundation. They make your facts visible and accessible, but the foundation isn’t complete without reasoning and representation, which we’ll cover in the next post.
Google has called this shift an evolution of Search itself. AI experiences mean people are asking longer, more complex questions and expecting deeper answers. If your content isn’t visible, retrievable, and trustworthy, AI won’t just rank you lower, it will leave you out entirely.