Four layers of Recommendation Authority.
AEO+ is Salienci's operating framework for the AI recommendation era. Each layer must be engineered, measured, and defended - because authority compounds layer over layer.
What is the AEO+ framework?
AEO+ is Salienci's operating model for Answer Engine Optimization: a four-layer structure - Access, Extraction, Optimization, and Authority - that describes every condition a brand must meet before an AI system will recommend it. Instead of ranking pages, AEO+ diagnoses whether a brand can be reached, understood, selected, and verified by AI answer engines. Diagnostics from the K-Matrix map directly onto these four layers.
Can AI systems reach and crawl your brand?
- AI crawler access (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot)
- robots.txt + llms.txt configuration
- Sitemap and indexability
- brand-facts.json publication
- Schema.org organization graph
Can AI systems extract clean, structured answers?
- Answer-ready content blocks
- Entity clarity and disambiguation
- Structured headings and FAQs
- Sourceable, citable facts
- Schema alignment with content
Is your content engineered for selection?
- Selection probability modeling
- Citation velocity engineering
- Query coverage mapping
- Content depth and breadth
- Competitor delta tracking
Does the open web verify your authority?
- Third-party citations and mentions
- Review signal density
- Expertise and E-E-A-T proof
- Category leadership signals
- Recommendation defensibility
Why does Access come before Selection?
Access gates every later layer: an AI system cannot extract, select, or cite a brand it cannot crawl. Salienci sequences AEO+ work in order - Access, then Extraction, then Optimization, then Authority - because fixing selection signals on an inaccessible site produces no measurable gain. This ordering is also how the Salienci engagement model prioritizes remediation.
See how your brand scores across AEO+.
The K-Matrix turns each AEO+ layer into scored, prioritized signals. A Salienci Authority Audit applies both to your brand and returns a private diagnostic dashboard.
What the AEO+ framework does not claim
AEO+ is a diagnostic model for how AI systems reach, read and select brand information. It does not predict a guaranteed ranking, a guaranteed citation, or a specific commercial outcome, because answer engines change retrieval and selection behaviour without notice.
Who it is for
Marketing, SEO and web engineering owners who need one shared model for why AI systems do or do not surface their brand.
What it evaluates
Crawler access, retrievability, entity and schema clarity, answer extractability, and the corroborating signals that influence selection.
How to read the output
Layer results are directional priorities, not absolute scores. Read them as an ordered remediation queue, and see the methodology and its stated limitations.
Continue reading
These pages give the next layer of detail behind what you have just read.
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