Answer Engine Optimization
Answer Engine Optimization helps AI answer engines such as ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Copilot and Claude understand and cite your WordPress site. It adds clean structured data, a visible FAQ and direct-answer block, an llms.txt index, AI crawler controls, a per-post AEO score and a site audit. It works on its own or next to Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress and The SEO Framework. What it does Structured data (JSON-LD) – one connected @graph with WebSite, Organization, Article/WebPage, FAQPage, Speakable and LocalBusiness/Hotel nodes. When an SEO plugin is active it lets that plugin output the base graph and only adds what’s missing, so there are no duplicate entities. FAQs and direct answers – add a target question, a short direct answer and FAQ items per post. They are shown on the page (FAQ uses accessible elements) and marked up as FAQPage and Speakable. Question suggestions – “Suggest questions” in the editor proposes questions and answers from your content (your AI key, or the post’s own headings when no key is set). AEO score (0-100) – per post, from content structure, schema completeness, FAQs, readability and citation signals. Works with any language, including Bengali, Arabic and CJK scripts. Site audit – flags thin content, missing images, FAQs, direct answers and configuration problems. Some issues can be fixed in one click. llms.txt, llms-full.txt and Markdown pages – an automatic /llms.txt index (grouped by language with Polylang/WPML), a full-text /llms-full.txt, and a clean Markdown version of every page at page-url.md or via Accept: text/markdown. Password-protected and noindex pages are left out. AI crawler controls – 28 AI crawlers grouped by purpose (training, AI search, user fetch) with one-click presets such as “block training, stay in AI search”, plus Content-Signal lines in robots.txt. AI visibility tracking – asks Perplexity (and with Pro also ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude) your customers’ questions with live web search and records whether the answer links to you, names you, at what position and with what sentiment. A question x engine matrix with full answers and sources; share of voice and trends are in Pro. Uses your own API keys. Nothing is estimated or simulated. AI traffic – logs AI crawler visits and visitors arriving from AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude…) without cookies or IP addresses. Google Search Console and GA4 (Pro) – question-style queries and AI-assistant sessions, using your own Google OAuth client. Bing AI Performance (Pro) – import the CSV export. IndexNow – pings Bing, Yandex, Seznam and Naver when a page is published or updated. Gutenberg blocks – FAQ, HowTo, Key Takeaways and Direct Answer blocks with matching schema; Elementor and Bricks widgets for FAQ and Key Takeaways. Live AEO score panel in the block editor. Content tools – stale-content finder, SEO titles and descriptions (written into Yoast/Rank Math/SEOPress fields when present) and image alt text. Bulk AI FAQ drafts and writing with AI are in Pro. Schema templates (Pro) – reusable JSON-LD with display rules (post type, term, page) and placeholders for custom fields, ACF and Meta Box. Author profiles – job title, credentials, expertise and profile links as Person schema, with an optional author box. Competitor check – reads competitors’ homepage structured data and checks for an llms.txt file, and shows schema types they use that you don’t. Local business – multiple locations with PostalAddress, opening hours, geo coordinates and business type (Hotel, Restaurant, Store and more). WooCommerce – adds brand and GTIN to WooCommerce’s own Product schema. Pro adds return policy, shipping details, price-valid-until and ProductGroup for variable products. Open Graph and Twitter cards – when no SEO plugin is handling them. Content briefs – target questions, entities and schema type for a topic, plus an opportunity score based on how much of your own content already covers it. Weekly email – optional audit and citation summary. White-label and client reports (Pro) – replace the plugin name and logo, and print a client report. Roles (Pro) – decide which roles can view reports, edit schema, use AI or change settings. Import / export – settings, schema, locations, templates and per-page FAQs as one JSON file; copy Yoast and Rank Math FAQ blocks into the plugin. Pro add-on (optional) Answer Engine Optimization Pro is a separate plugin that adds visibility tracking on ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude (25 prompts), share of voice, trends and scheduled scans, Google Search Console, GA4 and Bing data, client reports, white-label, bulk AI tools, schema templates, an MCP server, role permissions and advanced WooCommerce schema. Licenses are managed under AEO → License. AI providers (optional) Bring your own API key for OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), Google Gemini, Mistral, DeepSeek or OpenRouter to improve FAQ generation, rewriting, briefs, meta descriptions and alt text. You can pick the model in Settings. Keys are stored encrypted. Without a key, the plugin uses built-in rules based on your content. AI visibility scans use the OpenAI, Gemini and Anthropic keys with web search, plus an optional Perplexity key. Developers REST API under /wp-json/aeo-genius/v1/ (cookie or Application Password auth). MCP server (Pro) at /wp-json/aeo-genius/v1/mcp (off by default) with 14 tools, and the same tools registered with the WordPress Abilities API (6.9+). WPGraphQL fields: aeoScore, aeoTargetQuestion, aeoDirectAnswer, aeoFaqs, aeoSchema, aeoMarkdown. Public schema map: /wp-json/aeo-genius/v1/schemamap. WP-CLI: wp aeo audit, wp aeo score, wp aeo fix , wp aeo scan. Filters: aeo_post_types, aeo_post_schema_nodes, aeo_auto_schema, aeo_location_schema, aeo_llms_txt, aeo_llms_txt_limit, aeo_defer_to_seo_plugin, aeo_is_noindex, aeo_ai_model, aeo_woocommerce_product_schema, aeo_digest_recipient. Multisite: network activation sets up every site, including sites created later. Deleting the plugin removes its data. Define AEO_KEEP_DATA as true to keep it. Source code The admin screens are a React app compiled into assets/build/. Its full, human-readable source is included in the plugin in admin-app/src/, with the build setup in package.json, vite.config.ts, tsconfig.json, tailwind.config.js and postcss.config.js. To rebuild: run npm install, then npm run build. Privacy The plugin sets no cookies. AI traffic logging stores the crawler or assistant name, page and time, never IP addresses; you can turn it off. When you use AI features, post content (never visitor data) is sent to the provider you configured. AI visibility scans send your tracked questions to the engines you choose. IndexNow sends page URLs to api.indexnow.org. Competitor checks fetch the competitor’s public homepage and llms.txt. External services The plugin works without any external service. The services below are only contacted when you turn on the feature that uses them or add an API key for them. AI providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Mistral, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, Perplexity) Used for the optional AI features (FAQ generation, rewriting, content briefs, meta descriptions, alt text) and for AI visibility scans. A request is sent only when you click an AI action or run a scan, and only to the providers whose API key you saved. For AI features the request contains the post title and content you are working on; for scans it contains your tracked questions. No visitor data is sent. Your API key is sent to the provider to authenticate. OpenAI (api.openai.com): Terms of use, Privacy policy Anthropic (api.anthropic.com): Commercial terms, Privacy policy Google Gemini (generativelanguage.googleapis.com): Gemini API terms, Privacy policy Mistral AI (api.mistral.ai): Terms and privacy DeepSeek (api.deepseek.com): Terms of use, Privacy policy OpenRouter (openrouter.ai): Terms, Privacy policy Perplexity (api.perplexity.ai): Terms of service, Privacy policy IndexNow When the IndexNow option is on, the URL of a page you publish or update, your site’s host name and the plugin’s IndexNow key are sent to api.indexnow.org, which shares them with participating search engines (Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver). Terms, FAQ QueueCommerce license server Only used if you install the separate Answer Engine Optimization Pro add-on and enter a license key on AEO → License. The license key, your site’s domain and the product name are sent to www.queuecommerce.com when you activate or deactivate the key and once a day to check that it is still valid. Nothing is sent if no key is saved. Terms, Privacy policy Support Documentation & Plugin Page Author: Tarikul Islam Riko GitHub Repository Report a Bug
VigIA – AI Visibility, Analytics & Control
VigIA (Spanish for “lookout” or “watchman”, incorporating “IA” – Spanish for “AI”) is a complete AI visibility toolkit for WordPress. Monitor 60+ AI crawlers, control access to your content, and optimize how AI systems discover and understand your site. What does VigIA do? Scores your AI visibility with a 100-point analyzer covering 20 checks across 5 categories Tracks AI crawlers visiting your site (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and 60+ others) Provides detailed analytics with advanced filters, server-side pagination, and exportable reports with metadata banner Blocks unwanted crawlers via PHP (403 response) Manages robots.txt rules for AI crawlers with compliance monitoring Sends email alerts about crawler activity (daily, weekly, or monthly) Generates llms.txt files to help AI systems understand your site Serves markdown endpoints for posts, pages, taxonomy archives (categories, tags, WooCommerce product categories, custom taxonomies) and WooCommerce products with schema-like data Generates JSON-LD structured data with Site Identity and AI Discovery signals Exposes abilities for AI agents and automation tools (WordPress 6.9+) Key Features AI Visibility Analyzer * 100-point scoring system with letter grades (A+ to F) * 20 individual checks across 5 categories * Access & AI Discovery (37 pts): robots.txt, AI bot directives, Content Signals, llms.txt, sitemap, RSS feed * Structured Data & Semantic Context (25 pts): JSON-LD schemas, Open Graph, Twitter Cards, meta description, canonical URL * Content Structure & Readability (20 pts): heading hierarchy, semantic HTML5, image alt text, content/HTML ratio * AI Interaction & Distribution (8 pts): markdown delivery, AI share buttons * Access Performance (10 pts): TTFB measurement * Smart recommendations with direct links to VigIA features and plugin suggestions * Analyze any page on your site with URL autocomplete selector * Results cached for 24 hours with manual re-analyze option Analytics Dashboard * Total visits, unique crawlers, and pages crawled statistics * Timeline chart with daily breakdown * Category distribution (AI Training, AI Search, AI Assistant, Data Scraper) * Top crawlers and most crawled pages tables with paginated navigation * Share Buttons & AI-powered Summaries integration: see share button clicks per page * Recent activity log with content type and HTTP status columns (color coded by status family) * Advanced filters: multi-select crawler picker, content type, HTTP status code, and configurable date range * Server-side pagination with four-button pager (first, previous, next, last) — operates over the full database, not just the latest 500 rows * Period comparison functionality * CSV export with a metadata banner (site name, site URL, export type, date range, export timestamp, applied filters) * “Export filtered CSV” button that downloads exactly what the active filters return, with vigia-filtered-YYYY-MM-DD.csv filename * Content type detection distinguishes Home, Post, Page, Product, custom CPTs, Category archive, Tag archive, Date/Author archive, Feed, Sitemap, REST API, File, Admin / login attempts (/wp-admin, /wp-login.php), WordPress system (admin-ajax, xmlrpc, wp-cron, wp-comments-post), 404 Not found, and Other Crawler Blocking * Block crawlers via PHP with 403 Forbidden response * Quick block dropdown in analytics dashboard * Manage blocks from Extras page * Works on any server (Apache, Nginx, LiteSpeed, etc.) Robots.txt Management * Add Disallow rules for AI crawlers * Visual preview of your robots.txt * Compliance monitoring: see which crawlers ignore your rules * One-click blocking for non-compliant crawlers * Works with both physical and virtual robots.txt Email Alerts * Daily, weekly, or monthly reports * Three detail levels: Minimal, Normal, Complete * Non-compliant crawler warnings * Activity comparison with previous period Markdown for Agents * Serve posts, pages and any public post type as optimized markdown for AI agents * Serve taxonomy archive pages (categories, tags, WooCommerce product categories, custom taxonomies) as markdown — disabled by default, opt in per taxonomy * Dedicated .md URL endpoints (e.g., /your-post.md, /category/news.md, /product-category/electronics.md) * Accept: text/markdown content negotiation on posts and taxonomy archive pages * Discoverability via Link HTTP headers and HTML tags * YAML frontmatter for posts: title, date, modified, author, image, categories, tags, post type, lang * YAML frontmatter for taxonomy terms: title, description, url, type, taxonomy, parent, count, image (term meta), lang * WooCommerce product frontmatter adds schema-like fields: sku, product_type, price, regular_price, sale_price, currency, availability, stock_quantity, rating, rating_count, review_count * Taxonomy term body includes the term description (rendered through the_content), the list of direct child terms in hierarchical taxonomies, and an excerpt of the latest posts/products assigned to the term * Product listings inside product_cat archives include an inline summary with formatted price, “was X” on sale items, star rating and out-of-stock flag * Respects blocking rules (blocked crawlers get 403) and LLMs.txt exclusion filters * Per-term noindex detection from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO and SEOPress * Analytics integration: tracks markdown requests per crawler * X-Markdown-Tokens response header * Filters: vigia_markdown_post_eligible, vigia_markdown_term_eligible, vigia_markdown_term_posts_limit * Follows the Cloudflare Markdown for Agents standard LLMs.txt Generator * Select content by post type with one click * Filter by taxonomies (categories, tags, custom) * Manual include/exclude with AJAX search * Exclude by URL patterns (wildcards supported) * SEO plugin integration (auto-exclude noindex content) * Auto-regeneration (daily, weekly, monthly) * Robots.txt integration (add llms.txt and llms-full.txt references) * Generate llms.txt and llms-full.txt files * Physical files at the site root, or served by WordPress when the root is not writable * On multisite, every site gets its own files, mapped domains included * Full content or excerpt mode * Compatible with Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework, and Native SEO NoIndexer JSON-LD Structured Data * Generate WebSite and Organization/Person schema for site identity * AI Discovery: ReadAction pointers to llms.txt, llms-full.txt, and Markdown for Agents endpoints * Social profiles and sameAs links for brand identity across the web * SearchAction for Google sitelinks search box * Media library integration for logo selection * SEO plugin conflict detection (Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework) * Choose output page (front page or any published page) * Live JSON-LD preview with real-time updates * Smart integration with LLMs.txt and Markdown for Agents features Supported AI Crawlers VigIA monitors 60+ AI crawlers including: OpenAI: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, OAI-AdsBot, ChatGPT-User Anthropic: ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, Claude-Code Google: Google-Extended, GoogleOther, Gemini-Deep-Research, Google-NotebookLM Perplexity: PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User Meta: Meta-ExternalAgent, FacebookBot, Meta-WebIndexer Amazon: Amazonbot, Amzn-SearchBot, bedrockbot Mistral: MistralAI-User, MistralAI-Index Microsoft: BingBot ByteDance: Bytespider Apple: Applebot-Extended And many more… Privacy Focused VigIA stores visitor data locally in your WordPress database. No data is sent to external servers. Abilities API VigIA is one of the first WordPress plugins to implement the Abilities API introduced in WordPress 6.9. This API allows AI agents, automation tools, and external systems to discover and interact with VigIA’s functionality in a standardized, secure way. What are Abilities? Abilities are self-contained units of functionality that VigIA exposes through WordPress’s central registry. Each ability has defined inputs, outputs, and permissions, making it easy for automation tools to understand and use them. Available Abilities VigIA registers the following abilities: Analytics vigia/get-crawler-stats – Get statistics about AI crawler visits (total visits, unique crawlers, pages crawled) vigia/get-top-crawlers – Get a ranked list of most active AI crawlers vigia/get-top-pages – Get the most crawled pages on your site Blocking vigia/get-blocked-items – List all blocked crawlers and IP addresses vigia/block-crawler – Block a crawler by User-Agent pattern vigia/unblock-crawler – Remove an existing block Robots.txt vigia/get-robots-rules – Get current AI crawler rules in robots.txt vigia/add-robots-disallow – Add a Disallow directive for a crawler vigia/remove-robots-rule – Remove a robots.txt rule Use Cases Automated monitoring: AI agents can query crawler statistics and alert you to anomalies Reactive blocking: Automation tools can block crawlers that repeatedly ignore robots.txt External dashboards: Aggregate data from multiple WordPress sites with VigIA installed WP-CLI integration: Future command-line access through the Abilities API n8n / Make workflows: Build custom automation flows using VigIA’s abilities Requirements The Abilities API ships with WordPress 6.9 and later. On older WordPress versions, VigIA works normally but abilities and MCP are not available. MCP Server (Model Context Protocol) VigIA exposes its 9 abilities as native MCP tools to any MCP-compatible client (Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, Codex CLI, Antigravity, Continue, Cline, Zed and similar) through the official MCP Adapter plugin. The server is off by default: turn it on in VigIA > Extras > MCP, where VigIA also offers to install MCP Adapter if the site does not have it. Requirements WordPress 6.9 or later (provides the Abilities API) The free MCP Adapter plugin. A site where another plugin already runs the adapter works too, and the MCP tab says which copy is in use Quick connect (recommended) Open VigIA > Extras > MCP, enable the MCP server and click “Generate password and connection commands”. The plugin creates a dedicated Application Password named VigIA MCP and renders ready-to-paste commands for Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop and a generic block (URL + Authorization header) for any other MCP client. The plain password is shown only once. If you lose it, revoke the entry from the same panel and generate a new one. Endpoint https://your-site.example/wp-json/vigia/v1/mcp The endpoint uses HTTP Basic auth with the WordPress Application Password. The user must have the manage_options capability. Connecting Claude Code Quick Connect builds the full command for you. The shape is: claude mcp add --transport http vigia-your-site-example https://your-site.example/wp-json/vigia/v1/mcp --header "Authorization: Basic BASE64_OF_USER_AND_APP_PASSWORD" Quick Connect names the server after the site (vigia-your-site-example), so the same client can hold several sites with VigIA. Claude Code merges the new entry into its config file automatically — no risk of breaking other servers. Connecting Cursor Save the JSON block from Quick Connect as ~/.cursor/mcp.json. You can also reach this file from inside Cursor at Settings → Cursor Settings → MCP. If the file already exists with other content, see the FAQ. Claude Desktop and other clients Claude Desktop does not speak HTTP MCP, so it needs a small bridge and a config file of its own. Any other client (Codex CLI, Continue, Cline, Antigravity, Zed, or your own) takes the two raw values Quick Connect exposes: the server URL and the Authorization header. Both cases are covered in the FAQ, together with how to merge VigIA into a config file that already exists without losing what is in it. Read-only mode If you only want your AI to consult VigIA (not change anything), enable “Read-only mode” in the MCP tab. While on, write actions (block, unblock, robots changes) return a permission denied error. Read actions (statistics, top crawlers, blocked items, robots rules) keep working. The toggle stores a vigia_mcp_read_only option that hooks into the vigia_can_write_via_abilities filter. Developers can still force read-only from a mu-plugin: add_filter( 'vigia_can_write_via_abilities', '__return_false' ); The mu-plugin filter at the default priority takes precedence over the toggle. Who can reach the endpoint The endpoint requires the capability to manage options, the same one every tool behind it already asked for. The vigia_mcp_transport_capability filter can lower that bar; each tool keeps its own permission check. After connecting Restart your MCP client after adding the server so it picks up the new tools. Then try a few prompts to confirm everything is wired up: “Show me VigIA crawler stats for the last 7 days.” “List the top 5 most crawled pages on this site.” “Add a robots.txt Disallow rule for TestBot and then list the current AI crawler rules.” The third example exercises a read + write + read round-trip, which is the most complete sanity check. Support Need private support or custom development? Do you need one-on-one help, priority troubleshooting, or a custom feature, integration, or tweak built specifically for your site? I offer private support and custom development. Just contact me and tell me what you need. Need help or have suggestions? Official website WordPress support forum YouTube channel Documentation and tutorials Love the plugin? Please leave us a 5-star review and help spread the word! About AyudaWP We are specialists in WordPress security, SEO, AI and performance optimization plugins. We create tools that solve real problems for WordPress site owners while maintaining the highest coding standards and accessibility requirements.
