11 Factor GEO Audit: A checklist to tick off so AI engines will trust and cite your content

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. What is a GEO Audit?

3. Why AI engines trust some pages and ignore others

4. The 11 Factor GEO Audit checklist

5. How to receive a GEO audit on your site

6. Evidence: statistics & quotes that matter

7. FAQs

8. Glossary

9. Useful Links

1) Introduction

If AI engines don’t trust your page, they won’t cite it. That’s harsh, but it’s reality. This 11-factor GEO Audit lays out the precise signals that make generative engines ground their answers in your content rather than someone else’s.

2) What is a GEO Audit?

A GEO Audit is a practical, evidence-based review of how well your content is optimised for Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)—the discipline of shaping content so AI engines can find it, trust it, and cite it. It’s not traditional SEO with a new paint job; it’s visibility for grounded, cited answers.

3) Why AI engines trust some pages and ignore others

AI engines look for three clusters of proof:

• Grounded content (verifiable signals like citations, quotations, statistics)

• Credibility (authority, author identity, recency, source diversity, clarity)

• Machine-readability (clean schema markup and scannable structure)

When those clusters align, you become the “obvious” citation candidate.

4) The 11 Factor GEO Audit checklist

A) Grounded content factors

1. Citations

   • Do you cite multiple high-authority sources with clear attribution and links?

   • Are those sources diverse (academic, official docs, respected journalism)?

2. Statistics

   • Do you use recent, reputable data with context (time, sample, scope)?

   • Are stats placed near claims they support?

3. Quotations

   • Are quotes short, relevant, and attributed to identifiable experts?

   • Do they add authority rather than fluff?

B) Credibility signals

4. Fluency

   • Sentences flow, jargon is controlled, and paragraphs are short.

   • Read it aloud—does it “snap” into place?

5. Easy to Understand

   • Definitions on first use, examples, and bullet lists.

   • Every section explains the “why” in plain English.

6. Technical Terms / Unique Words

   • Correct terms used judiciously (e.g., grounding, RAG, JSON-LD).

   • Enough uniqueness to avoid generic sameness.

7. Authority

   • Link out to standards (OpenAI, Google, arXiv, reputable research).

   • Include organisational credentials and editorial standards.

8. Source Diversity

   • Mix primary docs, research papers, reputable media, and data platforms.

   • Avoid circular citations or echo chambers.

9. Author Bios

   • Real names, roles, headshot, relevant experience, and editorial policy.

   • Contact info or org details to close the trust loop.

10. Recency

• Timestamps in RFC 3339 UTC (with Z).

• Update high-intent pages quarterly; signpost last updated.

C) Machine-readable

11. Schema Markup

• Page-level graph with WebPage, BlogPosting, FAQPage, DefinedTerm (glossary), BreadcrumbList, and Organization wired via @id.

• Validate, and keep timestamps consistent (UTC-Z).

• Add ImageObject for hero/infographic and VideoObject if a short explainer exists.

5) How to receive a GEO audit on your site. 

• Go to our free GEO audit/quotation form

6) Evidence: statistics & quotes that matter

Three statistics (diverse and recent):

• Generative referrals are rising but still small: Large publishers saw AI referral growth from ~99% to 500% YoY (NYT, CNN, Fox, People, USA Today), yet AI referrals remain <1% of overall traffic  (Digiday, 2025)

• AI tools landscape: In August 2025, ChatGPT held ~69% of AI-tool traffic, with billions of visits monthly (Similarweb, 2025)

• Behavioural reality: Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults report getting news often/sometimes from AI chatbots (Pew Research Center, Oct 2025).  (Pew Research Center, 2025)

Three short quotes (diverse authorities):

• OpenAI on hallucinations: “Accuracy-based evals need to be updated so that their scoring discourages guessing.”  (OpenAI, 2025)

• Google on structured data: “Google uses structured data … to understand the content of the page.”  (Google for Developers)

• Princeton (GEO paper): “We introduce Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the first novel paradigm to aid content creators in improving their content visibility…” (Aggarwal, 2023)

Why these statistics and quotes matter:

Together they justify the entire audit: users are sampling AI answers, engines reward structure and grounding, and GEO is now a defined research area—not just marketing poetry.

7) FAQs

Q1. What is a GEO Audit?

A GEO Audit is a structured review of 11 trust signals that increase your likelihood of being cited by AI engines. It checks grounded content, credibility, and machine-readability in one pass.

Q2. How do AI engines decide which content to cite?

They retrieve, rank, and ground answers in sources that appear verifiable, recent, and structured. Pages with citations, schema, and clear authorship become obvious candidates.

Q3. How often should I repeat the GEO Audit?

Quarterly for evergreen pages; monthly for high-velocity topics. Timestamps and fresh data tell engines the page is actively maintained.

Q4. Does schema markup really help?

Yes—schema helps machines interpret your page entities and relationships, which increases the odds of rich display and grounded citation (Google’s own docs say it improves understanding). (Google for Developers)

8) Glossary (fast definitions)

• Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO): Structuring content so AI engines can find it, trust it, and cite it in grounded answers. (arXiv)

• Grounding: The process of tying model outputs to verifiable sources to reduce hallucination. (OpenAI)

• Schema Markup (JSON-LD): Machine-readable annotations that describe your content’s entities and relationships for crawlers.  (Google for Developers)

• Source Diversity: Using multiple high-quality origins (academic, official docs, reputable media) to avoid single-source bias.

• Recency: Up-to-date information signalled by timestamps and fresh datasets.

9) Useful Links:

• • Generative Engine Optimisation Service page: https://neuraladx.com/generative-engine-optimisation-service/

  • Proof that GEO Works (Video): https://neuraladx.com/proof-that-generative-engine-optimisation-works-video/