# [AEO services: what should exist when it is finished](https://rebilder.com/solutions/aeo-services)

- **Updated:** 2026-09-10
- **Description:** Define AEO services around source integration, useful answers and reporting. Compare initial delivery, ongoing maintenance and in-house options.

Define the work your business needs and the evidence that shows it is complete. A useful AEO engagement can combine research, integration, content development and ongoing management.



## What you get

- The deliverable list an AEO engagement should produce
- Which artefacts keep working after the engagement ends
- What you can produce yourself with free tooling
- How to check each deliverable actually landed

## The deliverables worth asking for

Agree on deliverables and how you will verify them: a baseline, tested changes, source ownership and a report your team can use.

| Deliverable | How to verify it landed | Yours after they leave? |
| --- | --- | --- |
| A baseline score per template | Re-run the scan yourself and compare | Yes, it is a number you hold |
| A written bot and CDN rule decision | Read the config | Yes |
| Content negotiation in your stack | One `curl` with an Accept header | Yes, if it is your middleware |
| Structured data that matches the prose | Diff the two on any page | Yes |
| Fact-position changes per template | Character offset of the first fact | Yes |
| A miss log and a ranked backlog | It should be a list you can sort | Agree access, export and retention terms |
| A monthly report | Ask which log it reads | Agree access and handover at the end of the engagement |

> **Plan ownership and handover** Agree how the integration will operate after the engagement ends. For hosted services, cover export, migration and continued service; for self-hosted middleware, cover code ownership and maintenance.

## What you can produce yourself, free

Free tools support an initial assessment. Implementation, interpretation and ongoing maintenance remain part of the work to scope and resource.

- **The baseline.** The scan needs no account, and [the spec is published](/spec/ars) so the number is checkable rather than proprietary.
- **Bot access.** Review robots.txt and CDN rules against the requests you want to support, then test the change.
- **Content negotiation.** Connect business sources through the free SDK and verify the important routes.
- **Request reporting.** Connect the event sink and review missing source mappings in the Console.

Verify the serving change yourself

```bash
curl -s -H 'Accept: text/markdown' https://example.com/page | head -20
curl -s https://example.com/page | wc -c
```

## Evaluate the full delivery scope

Useful paid work includes source integration, deployment, content research, writing, measurement and ongoing operations. Choose responsibilities that improve the business and save your team valuable work.

Useful ongoing work includes maintaining sources, investigating unanswered requests, testing new templates and turning customer questions into better content. Ask how those responsibilities will be delivered and reported.

## What do AEO services include?

Usually a baseline audit, a bot and CDN rule review, a serving-layer change, structured data corrections, page restructuring and ongoing reporting. Free tooling supports the audit and serving layer; scope implementation and ongoing management separately.

## How do I verify AEO work was actually done?

Request one of your pages with `Accept: text/markdown` and look at what comes back, then re-run the readability scan and compare against the baseline. Both checks are free and neither needs the vendor.

## Should the serving change live on my infrastructure?

Choose self-hosted or managed operation based on your team’s needs. Agree on code ownership, exports, service continuity and maintenance before the engagement ends.

## How should we measure an AEO engagement?

Ask for a clear delivery and measurement plan. Rebilder improves source information and visibility; the assistant selects its own answers and sources.

## Related

- [Answer engine optimization: the method](https://rebilder.com/learn/answer-engine-optimization)
- [What is AEO?](https://rebilder.com/solutions/what-is-aeo)
- [AEO tool](https://rebilder.com/solutions/aeo-tool)
- [AI SEO services](https://rebilder.com/solutions/ai-seo-services)
- [The published readability spec](https://rebilder.com/spec/ars)