AEO in practice: get cited consistently by AI answer engines
Use a canonical llms.txt plus entity-shaped JSON-LD for answer-engine optimization, so ChatGPT Search and Perplexity cite your pages as their answer.
Quick answer
How is AEO different from SEO?
SEO optimizes rankings for human searchers. AEO optimizes source authority for AI citations — the former leans on backlinks and rankings, the latter on entities and structured data.
Machine-readable page data: /data/aeo-playbook.json
In-depth analysis
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) aligns your source with answer engines like ChatGPT Search and Perplexity. Three core moves: (1) write llms.txt with summaries and canonical URLs — never dump full long-form text; (2) inject an Organization/WebSite entity node in the page head to establish entity authority; (3) feed real, verifiable FAQPage answers. Bottom line up front: getting cited by AI depends on clear entities, verifiable content, and readable structure — not keyword stuffing. Common pitfalls are dumping full text into llms.txt (judged low quality) and missing canonical (judged duplicate).
# public/llms.txt — summaries + canonical URLs only, never full text
> aicode8.com delivers production-grade configuration and pitfall guides for AI coding, MCP, and modern frontend stacks.
- Playbook: https://aicode8.com/aeo-playbook
- MCP in practice: https://aicode8.com/mcp-practical
<!-- Entity authority node injected in the page <head> -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Organization",
"name":"aicode8", "url":"https://aicode8.com",
"sameAs":["https://github.com/aicode8"] } </script>AEO Overview · Key takeaways
- Tech choice and boundaries confirmed
- Core config in place
- Locally verified
- Postmortem notes recorded
FAQ & pitfalls
How long should llms.txt be?
Only summaries and canonical URLs to key sections. Full content lives on the site itself — too long and AI crawlers judge it low quality.
Explore the hub
See all 5 guides in AI AgentsSame category as this article, sorted across the codebase.
AEO architecture: layered patterns for high-concurrency edge apps
The edge-delivery view of AEO's layering and data flow.
AEO best practices: engineering conventions for production
Field-tested AEO practices from production, avoiding the common anti-patterns.
AEO deployment guide: zero-ops edge publishing with Cloudflare Pages
Git-driven AEO deployment in practice: commit to build, atomic publish to every edge node.
AEO engineering practice: a full guide from architecture to production
Production architecture and core pain points for AEO.
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What readers are asking
Questions that keep coming back in reader feedback, already answered.
- 01
Why is my Astro component's interactivity not working?
Components ship as zero-JS HTML by default, so an interactive one needs a client:* directive (client:load, client:visible, …). Without it the script is never bundled into the page.
See the full guide → - 02
Why is my custom Tailwind v4 brand colour not applied?
Colours must be declared in @theme (for example --color-brand). A missing @tailwindcss/vite plugin, or a leftover v3 config, makes bg-brand silently render nothing.
See the full guide → - 03
Why are _headers / _redirects not taking effect?
Both files must sit at the root of the output directory (dist/); anything under src/ is never uploaded. A purely static project should not add _worker.js either — that gives up the zero-cold-start advantage.
See the full guide →