AI Citation Readiness Checklist

Use this before publishing expert content. The goal is simple: make the page easy for people to trust and easy for answer engines to retrieve, parse, and cite.

1. Expertise

• The author is named.
• The author page explains relevant experience.
• The page says where the author has first-hand knowledge and where they are interpreting sources.
• Important claims can be checked against visible sources.

2. Answer structure

• The first paragraph answers the main question directly.
• Each major section starts with a clear answer before details.
• Headings match real reader questions.
• Tables, lists, and examples are used where they make the answer easier to reuse.

3. Sources

• Primary sources are linked near the claims they support.
• Vendor claims are labelled as vendor claims unless independently verified.
• Dates are shown for time-sensitive guidance.
• Old information is updated with a real `updatedDate` only after meaningful changes.

4. Technical signals

• The page has Article or BlogPosting schema.
• The site has Organization and WebSite schema.
• The author has Person schema and `sameAs` links where possible.
• The page is crawlable, fast, mobile-friendly, and internally linked.

5. Trust and monetization

• Affiliate links are clearly disclosed.
• Sponsored content is labelled before the reader reaches the recommendation.
• The site has About, Contact, and Editorial Policy pages.
• Product links go to real checkout pages, not placeholders.