How SolCrys Works
What a SolCrys content audit actually looks like
A SolCrys content audit is a written deliverable: scoped prompt set, baseline visibility metrics across the engines that matter for your category, citation source breakdown, the top 5 to 10 priority gaps with diagnostic explanations, recommended actions with effort estimates, and explicit confidence/uncertainty disclosure. This guide walks through the actual structure of an audit report — what's in each section, how to read it, and where the typical buyer misreads what they're looking at. It also lists what's explicitly not in scope: not an SEO audit, not a revenue attribution model, not finished content for you. The intent is to set realistic expectations before you request the audit so the conversation after it is about the right things.
Updated 2026-05-17
Questions this guide answers
- What's in a SolCrys AEO content audit?
- How do I read an AEO content audit report?
- What does an AI visibility audit include?
- What's NOT in an AEO audit?
Direct answer
A SolCrys content audit is a written deliverable that scopes your brand's current AI visibility position across the engines that matter for your category, identifies the top gaps where competitors are winning, and translates those gaps into specific recommended actions. It runs against a fixed prompt set, references the actual engine outputs we captured, and discloses where the data is confident vs uncertain.
It is a starting point, not an end state. The audit shows you where things stand on a specific date; what closes the gaps is the work after it. If you're evaluating whether to do a Free Audit or a paid POC, this is what you'll get.
The 6 sections of a SolCrys audit
Every audit report follows the same structure. Two are about scope and baseline; one is the diagnostic core; two are about action; one is about honesty.
Section 1: Prompt set and measurement window
What we tracked and when. The exact prompts in your scoped set (typically 20 to 60 depending on plan, expandable for deeper coverage). The engines we probed. The measurement window (typically the last 7 days for short-term, plus a 30-day rolling for trend). The sources we used to ground each prompt — intent volume signals, community questions, AI query data, live engine follow-ups.
This section exists so you can audit the audit. If a prompt feels missing or off-target for your category, it's a discussion to have now, not after acting on the rest.
Section 2: Baseline visibility metrics
Where your brand stands across the engines we tracked. Citation share, recommendation share, mention rate, and answer-position metrics, broken out by engine. A comparison line for the top 3 competitors in your category. The trend direction over the measurement window where signal is reliable.
Read this section for direction and order of magnitude, not for the exact number. AEO measurement is statistical — see our note on why your AI visibility score moves for the variance framing.
Section 3: Citation source breakdown
What's actually getting cited for your prompts. The domains AI engines are pulling from — your own, your competitors', third-party publications, community forums, review sites — and the relative weight of each source layer. New domains appearing in your category. Sources that dropped from the citation set during the measurement window.
This is the diagnostic section that usually surprises customers most. The mental model of 'what AI engines should cite us for' often differs from the actual source map by a wide margin.
Section 4: Top 5 to 10 priority gaps
The diagnostic core. Each gap card includes: which prompts it affects, the gap type (absence, citation decay, accuracy issue, source shift, competitive displacement), the engines where it shows up, an estimated revenue-at-risk where the customer has provided prompt-level value mapping, and the evidence trail back to the specific engine outputs.
Gaps are ranked by combined revenue impact and severity. The number is 5 to 10 because that's roughly the amount most marketing teams can act on in a quarter; surfacing 50 would make the audit unreadable.
Section 5: Recommended actions
For each priority gap, the recommended action type — publish new content, refresh an existing canonical page, update Corporate Context, seed a third-party source — and an effort estimate. Where the gap is content-shaped, a brief sketch of what the content should cover (not the full draft; the draft happens after, inside Action Hub if you proceed).
Recommendations come with confidence flags. Some are mechanically obvious (an absence gap with a specific competitor URL winning the citation slot). Some are interpretive (a citation source shift that could plausibly resolve on its own as engine source preferences move).
Section 6: Confidence and uncertainty disclosure
What we know less well than the rest of the report makes it sound. Engines with thin sample sizes during the window. Prompts where engine non-determinism produced high variance across re-runs. Gaps where the cause is ambiguous between competitive movement and engine-side ranking change.
This section exists because the audit is more useful when its limits are explicit. A vendor that doesn't have an uncertainty section is selling a story, not data.
What's NOT in the audit
Five things customers sometimes expect that the audit doesn't deliver. Knowing this upfront reduces friction in the conversation that follows.
- Not an SEO audit. We don't analyze your traditional Google SERP ranking, link profile, or Core Web Vitals. Those are SEO tool territory. The audit is scoped to AI engines and answer-engine surfaces.
- Not a revenue attribution model. We can estimate revenue-at-risk per prompt if you provide the value mapping, but we don't produce a multi-touch attribution model or a full marketing-mix model. Those require integration work and live downstream from the audit.
- Not finished content. The audit recommends actions and sketches what content needs to exist. Drafting and publishing live in the Action Hub workflow after you sign, not in the audit deliverable.
- Not a competitor smear. We name competitors where they're winning specific citation slots — because not naming them would make the diagnostic unreadable — but we don't characterize their content or speculate about their strategy. The audit talks about the citation evidence, not their corporate intent.
- Not a finished playbook. The audit is a snapshot, not a 12-month plan. A 12-month plan is built from the audit findings during onboarding, after enough conversation to understand your team's capacity and constraints.
How long the audit takes
A Free Audit typically runs 3 to 5 business days end to end. That includes 1 day to scope the prompt set with your input (more if the category is unfamiliar), 1 to 2 days for the measurement and capture run (engines have their own pace), and 1 to 2 days for the written diagnostic and recommendations.
Paid POC audits run longer (typically 14 to 21 days) because the prompt set is larger, the measurement window is longer for trend, and the recommended-actions section gets deeper diagnostic work per gap.
What comes after the audit
The audit ends with three options the customer can take.
Take the recommendations and execute internally. Some customers want only the diagnostic — they have the content capacity to act on the recommended actions in-house. That's a legitimate path; the audit is useful even without the platform behind it.
Pilot the platform to close the top 3 to 5 gaps. A 30-day pilot uses the audit findings as the starting Action Hub queue, drafts content, routes through brand review, ships, and measures Recovery Score on what was shipped. We describe the pilot structure in detail in our aeo-platform-pilot-playbook.
Pass. If the audit shows the gaps aren't material to the business, or if the recommended actions don't fit how the team operates, pass. We'd rather you tell us no after the audit than discover the fit was wrong after onboarding.
How to request one
Free Audits are scoped during a 30-minute discovery call where we agree on the prompt set, the engines, and the comparison competitors. You receive the written audit in 3 to 5 business days after the call. Request via the Free AI Visibility Audit link in the top navigation, or write to the team directly.
Paid POC audits run on a contract-scoped basis and are typically positioned mid-evaluation — after the Free Audit has shown enough alignment to warrant the deeper work, before signing an annual contract.
FAQ
How many prompts does the Free Audit include?
Typically 20 to 30 prompts, scoped during the discovery call to your top category questions. We can expand for paid POC audits where deeper coverage matters. The principle: a focused set measured well beats a sprawling set checked once.
Will the audit name specific competitors?
Yes — where competitors are winning specific citation slots on prompts in your set, we name them and show the cited URLs. Not naming them would make the diagnostic unreadable. We describe the evidence (who's cited where), not their strategy or intent — we don't have visibility into the latter.
Do I have to use the SolCrys platform after the audit?
No. The audit is a diagnostic deliverable. Some customers take the findings and execute in-house. We'd rather you decide after seeing the audit whether the workflow fits your team than commit before. The Free Audit exists partly to make that decision better-informed.
How does the audit handle engine non-determinism?
We disclose it in the confidence section. Where engines produced high variance across re-runs in the measurement window, we flag the affected prompts and avoid presenting them as if the numbers are deterministic. The visibility measurement methodology page describes how we sample across re-runs.
Can I share the audit with my agency or partners?
Yes. The audit is your deliverable. Many customers share it with their content agency, PR firm, or category consultants to align everyone on the gaps. Standard practice.
What if my category is unusual or my buyers ask very specific prompts?
That's exactly when the discovery call is most useful. The audit is scoped to your specific buyers and category. If your prompts are unusual, we adjust the prompt set construction — drawing from your internal sales-team knowledge, community-question signals from sources that cover your niche, and the prompts your competitors appear to be optimizing for. Tell us during scoping; we'd rather build the right set than apply a category template.
Related guides
Citation & Source Influence
Citation Gap Audit
A 5-step framework to identify which sources AI engines cite for your competitors but not for your brand, and the recovery actions for each gap type.
AEO Fundamentals
The Answer Gap Is the New Content Brief
Learn what an AI answer gap is, why it matters for AEO, and how marketing teams can turn weak AI answers into practical content briefs.
How SolCrys Works
AI Visibility Measurement Methodology
How we capture your AI visibility data across supported engines, with each response traceable to a prompt, engine, capture method, available model or surface signal, and timestamp. Consumer-surface and retail-assistant validation are scoped where technically reliable.
Free AI visibility audit
Find out where your brand is missing, miscited, or misrepresented.
SolCrys maps high-intent prompts to mentions, citations, answer accuracy, and content gaps so your team can prioritize the next pages to ship.