How we score an article
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Short answer: the article checker applies fixed rules, and every one of them is listed here with its honest basis. There is no hidden model and no benchmark against other people's pages. Overall is 40% SEO, 30% AEO and 30% GEO. A score is a readiness estimate, not a prediction of rankings or citations.
What the three scores mean
- SEO covers the writing itself: headline, headings, where your phrase appears, length, ease of reading and images. On a published page it also covers the Google preview text and the Article label. Speed, security and whether Google can reach the page belong to the website checkup.
- AEO asks whether Google's answer box, or an AI assistant, could take a direct answer straight out of it. It looks for an answer up front, headings written as questions, lists, tables, plain definitions and a summary.
- GEO asks whether an AI assistant such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity would cite it. It looks for statistics, sources, quotations, a named author and date, first-hand experience, and specifics instead of adjectives.
Where the rules come from
Each rule below says what it rests on, in one of three ways. 9 rules come straight from a published source that says the same thing. 9 take their idea from a source, but the number is ours, because the source gives none. The other 18 are our own rules of thumb. No published source sets them, and we say so.
The first source is Google's guide to generative AI features in Search. It asks for content that is unique, helpful and organised with headings, says first-hand experience matters, and recommends relevant images and video. In its own words, you “don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown” to appear in Google Search.
Google also disagrees with some common advice, and some of our rules of thumb. It says there is no ideal page length and no preferred word count. It says there is no need to break writing into tiny pieces, or to write in a special way for AI search. So read the length, paragraph and AEO scores as our view of what makes writing easy to read and to quote. They are not Google's rules.
The second source is the KDD 2024 study by Aggarwal and colleagues. They measured what actually moves visibility in AI answers, and got it up by as much as 40%. Their three best changes were adding statistics, adding quotations, and citing sources. Easier reading helped, but less. Keyword stuffing did little or nothing, and on one engine it did 10% worse than making no change at all. That is why no rule here rewards repeating your phrase. The study sets no word counts, sentence lengths or reading scores, so where our rules use those numbers, they are ours.
- Google, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search
- Our threshold, based on Google's guide to generative AI features in Search
- Google, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Google, Influencing your title links in search results
- Our threshold, based on Google's guide to title links (which sets no length limit)
- Google, Control your snippets in search results
- Google, Article structured data
- Google, Image SEO best practices
- Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD 2024
- Our threshold, based on Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD 2024
- Our own rule of thumb. No published source sets this.
SEO rules (16)
| Rule | Weight | What passes | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| A headline | high | The piece has one clear headline. | |
| Headline length | medium | 30 to 60 characters (20 to 70 is a warning). | Our threshold (Google) |
| One main headline | medium | Exactly one main headline (Heading 1); sections use Heading 2 and Heading 3. | Our threshold (Google) |
| Section headings | medium | Two or more section headings, and no Heading 3 straight after the main headline (from 600 words). | Our threshold (Google) |
| Your phrase in the headline | high | The phrase you want to be found for appears in the headline. | Our threshold (Google) |
| Your phrase in the opening | medium | The phrase appears in the first 100 words. | Our rule of thumb |
| Your phrase in a section heading | low | The phrase appears in at least one section heading. | Our rule of thumb |
| How often your phrase appears | medium | 0.3% to 2.5% of all words; over 3.5% fails as overuse. Counted as whole words. | Our threshold (GEO study) |
| Length | high | 600 words or more (300 to 600 is a warning). | Our rule of thumb |
| Easy to read | medium | Reading ease of 50 or more out of 100 (30 to 50 is a warning). | Our threshold (GEO study) |
| Paragraph length | low | Average under 120 words and none over 200. | Our rule of thumb |
| Google preview text | medium | Published page only: the short text under your link in Google is set, 70 to 160 characters. | |
| Links to your own pages | low | Published page only: two or more links to other pages on your site. | Our rule of thumb |
| Article label for Google | medium | Published page only: the hidden Article label (structured data) is present. | |
| Image descriptions | low | Every image has a description (alt text). | |
| Images | low | At least one image (not judged for pasted text). |
AEO rules (10)
| Rule | Weight | What passes | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answer in the first paragraph | high | The opening paragraph is 20 to 90 words and answers the question. | Our rule of thumb |
| Enough detail to answer | high | At least 300 words; below that the piece cannot be the best answer. | Our rule of thumb |
| Headings written as questions | medium | At least one section heading ends in a question mark, or opens with how, what or why. | Our rule of thumb |
| Lists or steps | medium | At least one bulleted or numbered list (from 300 words). | Our rule of thumb |
| A table for comparisons | low | At least one table (from 300 words). | Our rule of thumb |
| A one-sentence definition | medium | At least one sentence that defines the subject, such as “A felt roof is …”, anywhere in the piece. | Our rule of thumb |
| Questions and answers | low | A questions heading, or three or more question headings. | Our rule of thumb |
| Sentence length | medium | Average of 20 words or fewer (up to 25 is a warning). | Our threshold (GEO study) |
| Summary or key points | low | A summary, key points, TL;DR or short-answer section. | Our rule of thumb |
| Paragraphs short enough to quote | low | Half or more of paragraphs are 40 to 120 words (from 300 words). | Our rule of thumb |
GEO rules (10)
| Rule | Weight | What passes | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Numbers and facts | high | Three or more numbers with units, percentages, prices or counts per 1,000 words. A bare year does not count. | Our threshold (GEO study) |
| Links to your sources | high | Two or more links to other websites, or phrases such as “according to”. | Our threshold (GEO study) |
| Quotations | medium | At least one direct quotation or block quote. Quoted code and settings do not count. | GEO study |
| Author named | medium | An author line, document author or author label is present. | |
| Published or updated date | medium | A date is present. | Our rule of thumb |
| Your own experience | medium | At least one first-hand phrase (we tested, our data, case study, and so on). | |
| Why the author is qualified | low | A qualification is stated (doctorate, chartered, years of experience), or the named author's role is given. | |
| Facts instead of buzzwords | medium | Three or fewer vague words or buzzwords per 1,000 words (over six fails). Counts unbacked superlatives (“leading”, “world-class”) and long words where a short one would do (“leverage”, “utilise”). | Our rule of thumb |
| Same subject start to end | low | The main word of your phrase, or of the headline, appears in both the opening and the closing third. | Our rule of thumb |
| A recent year mentioned | low | This year, last year or next year is mentioned. Judged against today's date. | Our rule of thumb |
How the numbers are made
Each rule has a weight: high counts 5, medium 3, low 1. A pass earns the full weight, a warning half, a fail nothing. Rules that cannot apply to what you gave us are left out entirely, such as a Google preview text when you paste a draft. A category score is the share of the weight you earned. Thin or vague writing can score well on one of the three and badly on another. That is deliberate.
What we do not do
- We do not store the text you check. We keep the scores, the pass or fail outcomes, the word count, the keyword and, for a URL, its address. That is how we see which problems are most common.
- We do not send your draft to an AI model. Every rule runs on our own server.
- We do not compare you with other people's pages, and we do not claim to know what will rank.