# AEO Footnotes

> AEO Footnotes is an open publication about AI visibility: answer engine optimisation (AEO), generative engine optimisation (GEO), LLM visibility, AI search and AI discovery. Every article ends with the sources it cites.

AEO Footnotes (https://aeofootnotes.com) publishes articles by community writers. Every article ends with a numbered Footnotes section listing the sources it cites, and each article page carries schema.org Article JSON-LD with a citation array built from those footnotes.

## Pages

- [Latest articles](https://aeofootnotes.com/latest): newest first
- [Topics](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics): all topics
- [About](https://aeofootnotes.com/about): what the publication is and how it works
- [Guidelines](https://aeofootnotes.com/guidelines): sourcing and writing rules
- [Tools directory](https://aeofootnotes.com/tools): AEO and AI visibility tools by category
- [Agencies directory](https://aeofootnotes.com/agencies): AEO and GEO agencies by service and region
- [Full text](https://aeofootnotes.com/llms-full.txt): recent articles in full, with footnotes
- [RSS feed](https://aeofootnotes.com/feed.xml)
- [JSON feed](https://aeofootnotes.com/feed.json)

## Topics

- [AEO](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics/aeo): Answer engine optimisation: getting cited in AI answers.
- [GEO](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics/geo): Generative engine optimisation and how it overlaps with AEO.
- [LLM visibility](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics/llm-visibility): How often and how accurately language models mention a brand, product or page.
- [AI search](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics/ai-search): ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Mode behaviour.
- [AI discovery](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics/ai-discovery): Crawlers, feeds, llms.txt and the plumbing that lets AI systems find you.
- [Tools](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics/tools): AI visibility tools, what they measure and where they fall short.
- [Experiments](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics/experiments): Tests, protocols and datasets, with methods shown.
- [News](https://aeofootnotes.com/topics/news): Changes to answer engines and the rules around them.

## Recent articles

- [What first-party data shows about AI search: Search Console, Bing AI Performance and their limits](https://aeofootnotes.com/desk/what-first-party-data-shows-about-ai-search-search-console-bing-ai-performance-a) by Footnotes Desk: Google folds AI Overviews and AI Mode into Search Console totals, while Bing reports citations directly. Here is what each report measures and where each stops.
- [llms.txt: what the spec says, what Common Crawl found, and what Google's AI guidance covers](https://aeofootnotes.com/desk/llmstxt-what-the-spec-says-what-common-crawl-found-and-what-googles-ai-guidance) by Footnotes Desk: The llms.txt proposal is a small markdown file with a defined format. Adoption is real, but none of the sources shows it affects AI search visibility.
- [What Google says it takes to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode](https://aeofootnotes.com/nicklaunches/what-google-says-it-takes-to-appear-in-ai-overviews-and-ai-mode) by Nick Launches: Google says no special markup or files are needed for AI features. Here is what it requires, what it recommends, how to limit your content, and where the traffic shows up.
- [Google adds inline links, official-site sections and creator profiles to AI Mode and AI Overviews](https://aeofootnotes.com/desk/google-adds-inline-links-official-site-sections-and-creator-profiles-to-ai-mode) by Footnotes Desk: Google's Oct 15 update moves inline links higher, tests a section for official sites and adds creator profiles. Here is what it means for publishers.
- [robots.txt and llms.txt across 118 AEO tools and agency sites: what we found](https://aeofootnotes.com/lab/robotstxt-and-llmstxt-across-118-aeo-tools-and-agency-sites-what-we-found) by Footnotes Lab: The Footnotes Lab fetched robots.txt and llms.txt from every published tool and agency domain in our directory. Nearly all serve robots.txt, and very few block AI crawlers.
- [Cloudflare AI Crawl Control and pay per crawl: what they show and what the ratios miss](https://aeofootnotes.com/desk/cloudflare-ai-crawl-control-and-pay-per-crawl-what-they-show-and-what-the-ratios) by Footnotes Desk: What a site owner can see and do with Cloudflare's AI Crawl Control, where pay per crawl stands, and how to read crawl-to-refer ratios.
- [How often AI search engines cite the wrong source: what two audits measured](https://aeofootnotes.com/desk/how-often-ai-search-engines-cite-the-wrong-source-what-two-audits-measured) by Footnotes Desk: The Tow Center's excerpt-tracing test and the Stanford verifiability audit measure different things, but both find that AI search citations are frequently wrong.
- [Do AI summaries cut clicks? What Pew, Ahrefs, Seer and Semrush each measured](https://aeofootnotes.com/nicklaunches/do-ai-summaries-cut-clicks-what-pew-ahrefs-seer-and-semrush-each-measured) by Nick Launches: Four studies, four methods, four different answers. Here is who measured what, what each can show, and why the numbers disagree.
- [AI crawlers by purpose: what each fetches and the robots.txt lines that control it](https://aeofootnotes.com/desk/ai-crawlers-by-purpose-what-each-fetches-and-the-robotstxt-lines-that-control-it) by Footnotes Desk: OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic, Apple, Google and Common Crawl crawlers sorted by training, search and user-requested fetches, with the robots.txt rules for each.