We Ran 11 AI Agents on Our Own Website — Here's What We Found
A transparent self-audit of goaiden.ai using Aiden's own analysis pipeline. Real numbers, real problems, real fixes.
TL;DR
We pointed Aiden at our own domain (goaiden.ai) and let 11 autonomous agents audit it for AI search readiness. The results were humbling: AEO Health Score of 34/100, cited by only 1 out of 5 AI engines, and zero Google rankingsfor any competitive keyword. This post shares the raw data, explains what we found, and documents every fix we applied. We'll update this page monthly with new scores.
Why We Audited Ourselves
There's a credibility problem in the AEO tools space: every platform promises to improve your AI search visibility, but none of them publish their own scores. We decided to change that.
On April 14, 2026, we ran Aiden's full analysis pipeline on goaiden.ai — the same pipeline our users run on their websites. We used our three diagnosis agents (Domain Analyzer, Keyword Discovery, and AEO Monitor) to generate a baseline. No cherry-picking, no data massage. Here's everything.
The Baseline Numbers
Our analysis pipeline ran three phases: domain crawl and technical audit (3 seconds), AI-powered content analysis (18 seconds), and five-engine citation check (22 seconds). Total wall time: 43 seconds. Here's what came back:
AEO Health Score
34
Out of 100
AI Citation Rate
20%
1 of 5 engines
Google Rankings
0
For competitive keywords
Pages Indexed
~5
Of 20 submitted
For context, a mature SaaS site in the AEO space (like Profound or Semrush) typically scores 75-90. A brand new site with no backlinks scoring 34 is actually within the expected range — but knowing that doesn't make it less painful.
AEO Health Score Breakdown
The AEO Health Score evaluates four dimensions. Here's how goaiden.ai performed on each:
Schema markup present (Organization, SoftwareApplication, Article). Sitemap valid with 20 URLs. Missing: robots.txt lacks sitemap directive, no hreflang tags, some pages missing canonical tags. Google Page Speed score acceptable but not optimized for Core Web Vitals.
7 indexed blog posts covering core AEO topics. Definition-first writing structure on key pages. Missing: no original research or proprietary data (until this post), no author bylines with credentials, limited internal linking between articles, no external citations to authoritative sources.
Cited by 1 of 5 AI engines (Google AI Overview only, via branded query). Not cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Claude for any competitive keyword. Zero presence in any "best AEO tools" AI-generated response. Root cause: no external mentions on domains that AI engines trust.
Zero rankings for competitive keywords ("best AEO tools", "AI citation tracking", "AEO software"). Only ranks for branded query + long-tail ("goaiden.ai blog what is AEO" → position 1). Domain age: 1 month. Referring domains: 0. Google has indexed approximately 5 of 20 submitted pages.
AI Citation Results by Engine
We queried each AI engine with 8 keywords related to our space ("best AEO tools", "AI citation tracking software", "AEO health score", etc.) and checked whether goaiden.ai appeared in the response. Methodology: each query was run via the engine's API with web search enabled. A "citation" means the engine mentioned goaiden.ai or Aiden by name in its response.
Google AI Overview cited us only for the branded query "goaiden.ai AEO" — which is not a real competitive query. For every non-branded keyword, all five engines returned competitors: Profound, Semrush, Otterly, SE Ranking, AIclicks, Scrunch.
Why AI Engines Don't Cite Us (Yet)
After analyzing the results, the pattern is clear. AI engines cite sources that appear on domains they already trust: G2 reviews, comparison articles on established blogs, GitHub awesome-lists, and Product Hunt launches. goaiden.ai has zero presence on any of these platforms. We have good content on our own domain, but no third-party validation that AI engines can reference.
This matches published research. According to Search Engine Land's analysis of 8,000 AI citations, comparison articles lead AI citations at 32.5%, and sites cited by AI engines almost always have backlinks from domains in the AI engine's existing trust graph.
What We Fixed (So Far)
Based on the audit results, we applied the following changes in a single deployment on April 12, 2026:
Sitemap cleanup: 55 → 20 URLs
Removed 13 template-generated industry pages (doorway page risk), 16 low-quality blog posts. Switched from dynamic timestamps to static dates to restore Google's trust in sitemap signals.
Noindexed 16 thin content pages
Blog posts that were variations of the same topic (e.g., 'optimize for Gemini' vs 'optimize for Perplexity') were cannibalizing each other. Applied noindex with follow to pass link equity while removing from index.
Removed fake aggregateRating schema
Had a 4.8-star rating from 12 reviews in structured data — but no real reviews exist. This is considered structured data spam by Google and could trigger manual penalties.
Fixed navigation links to noindexed pages
Nav component was linking to auth-required dashboard pages and noindexed blog posts, wasting crawl budget on pages Google couldn't or shouldn't index.
Submitted 3 GitHub awesome-list PRs
Added Aiden to awesome-generative-engine-optimization, generative-engine-optimization-tools, and awesome-geo repositories. Each merged PR = one dofollow backlink from a high-authority domain.
Sent outreach to 4 'Best AEO Tools' article authors
Contacted authors of top-ranking comparison articles (AIclicks, LeapsHQ, Stackmatix, EWR Digital) requesting inclusion. Being listed in an article that already ranks #1 for 'best AEO tools' is more valuable than trying to outrank it.
3 Things We Learned
1. Content alone doesn't get you cited
We had 25+ blog posts covering every AEO topic. Google indexed about 5 of them. AI engines cited zero. The lesson: content is necessary but not sufficient. Without external signals (backlinks, mentions on trusted platforms, reviews), AI engines have no reason to trust or cite a new domain — no matter how good the content is.
2. Fewer pages, better indexed
After cutting our sitemap from 55 to 20 URLs, we expect Google to index a higher percentage of our remaining pages. The 13 template industry pages were likely triggering Google's doorway page detector, which can suppress an entire domain's indexing. Quality over quantity.
3. The fastest path to AI citations is through existing ranked content
Instead of trying to rank our own "best AEO tools" page (competing against sites with thousands of backlinks), we're focusing on getting listed in articles that already rank. If AIclicks adds Aiden to their #1-ranking comparison article, every AI engine that cites that article will indirectly reference us. Distribution beats creation.
Next Steps and Timeline
We're committing to updating this page monthly with our latest scores. Here's the measurement plan:
| Metric | Apr 14 (Baseline) | May Target | Jun Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEO Health Score | 34 | 50 | 65 |
| AI Engines Citing | 1 / 5 | 2 / 5 | 3 / 5 |
| Referring Domains | 0 | 5-10 | 15-25 |
| Indexed Pages | ~5 | 15 | 20 |
| Competitive Keywords in Top 50 | 0 | 3 | 8 |
If these numbers improve, the fixes work. If they don't, we'll document what else we tried and share the lessons. Either way, you get real data from a real website — not a hypothetical case study with conveniently round numbers.
Methodology
For transparency, here's exactly how each measurement was taken:
AEO Health Score: Composite of four sub-scores (Technical SEO, Content Quality, AI Visibility, Search Presence), each weighted 25%. Generated by Aiden's Domain Analyzer agent using Claude Sonnet 4 for content evaluation.
AI Citation Check: Each of 5 engines queried via API with 8 keyword variations. ChatGPT via OpenAI Responses API (web_search_preview tool), Perplexity via sonar-pro, Gemini via Google AI API with Search Grounding, Claude via Anthropic API with web_search tool, Google AI Overview extracted from Serper SERP results. A "citation" requires the engine to mention goaiden.ai or "Aiden" (in AEO context) in its response text or sources.
Google Rankings: Checked via Serper API for 12 target keywords. Position recorded only if goaiden.ai appears in top 100 results.
Pages Indexed: Estimated via "site:goaiden.ai" search operator. Exact count from Google Search Console may differ.
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Start Free AuditDonghao Li
Founder of Aiden. Building AI-powered SEO & AEO tools.