Documentation
How PopAEO works
A reference for the core concepts behind answer engine optimization and how each part of PopAEO helps AI discover, understand, and recommend your products.
What is answer engine optimization?
Answer engine optimization (AEO) makes your store easy for AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overview — to read, cite, and recommend. Where SEO optimizes for rankings and clicks, AEO focuses on becoming part of the answer when a buyer asks AI what to buy.
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a structured, AI-readable index of your store — a product catalog written for
AI crawlers, describing your products, prices, inventory, tags, and policies in a consistent format.
PopAEO generates and maintains it for you.
- Products — titles, key attributes, and semantic tags.
- Prices — current pricing and currency.
- Inventory — in-stock and out-of-stock signals.
- Policies — shipping, returns, and other buyer-relevant terms.
The AEO audit and score
PopAEO evaluates your live catalog and produces an AEO readiness score out of 100, with a per-metric breakdown so you know exactly what to improve:
- Product title clarity — how clearly titles communicate what each item is.
- Structured data coverage — how complete your machine-readable signals are.
- Description semantic depth — how well descriptions convey use, audience, and value.
- Category and tag signals — how reliably products are categorized and tagged.
Each recommendation includes its expected impact, so you can prioritize the highest-value fixes first.
Real-time sync
PopAEO keeps your AI-readable index aligned with your store. When inventory sells out, prices change, or new products launch, those updates flow into the index automatically — so AI does not recommend outdated or unavailable products.
Growth strategies
Sync keeps your index accurate; growth strategies shape what AI prioritizes. Apply weighting to
high-margin products, clearance items, seasonal campaigns, and cross-sell bundles — these signals are
written into llms.txt so AI surfaces the SKUs that matter most to your revenue.
Supported platforms
Shopify natively, and WooCommerce through a WordPress plugin. Shopify merchants install from the App
Store with native billing. WooCommerce merchants search for PopAEO llms.txt in WordPress Admin, connect
the console, and serve /llms.txt from their domain root.
Data and privacy
PopAEO reads catalog data — products, pricing, inventory, and policies — to build your AI-readable index. It never rewrites your product titles, descriptions, or existing Google SEO. See our Privacy Policy for details, or contact support@popaeo.com for data questions.