AEO Citation Check — Post-Publication

Close the loop that /contentforge:cf-brief opens. The brief checks AI Overview presence and citation patterns before production; this skill verifies — after publication — whether the piece actually earned citations, tracks the trend across re-checks, and routes losses to /contentforge:content-refresh with specific evidence.

Honest scope — read before promising anything

• What this skill measures directly: Google SERP state for the target queries via web search (AI Overview present? which domains are cited/visible? does the piece rank?), and on-page extractability of the published URL via web fetch (definition block intact, dates visible, schema present, metrics tables surviving the CMS).
• What it cannot measure directly: citations inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Copilot answers — there is no public API for "was I cited," and probing chat UIs is not reproducible. Cross-engine measurement needs a third-party tracker (Profound, Otterly, Conductor AgentStack, HubSpot AEO — same list the Phase 6 optimizer names). If such a connector is available in the tool list, use it and label the data's source; if not, say plainly that engine coverage is Google-observable-only. Never present an estimate as a measurement.

When to Use

Use /contentforge:cf-aeo-check when:

• A piece published 2+ weeks ago and you want to know if AI engines are citing it (earlier checks mostly measure indexing lag, not merit)
• You're deciding which content to refresh and want citation evidence, not hunches
• A competitor appears in AI Overviews for your target query and you want the delta documented
• You want a standing citation scoreboard per brand across re-checks

Not for: pre-production research (that's /contentforge:cf-brief), rank tracking as a discipline (this is a citation check, not a rank tracker), or measuring engines it cannot observe (see Honest scope).

Required Inputs

Minimum required (one of):

• Published URL — the live page to check
• Requirement ID (e.g., REQ-001) — resolved via the brand's tracking backend to the published URL recorded at completion; fails with a clear message if no URL was recorded

Optional:

• Brand — brand profile (auto-detected from the tracking record when using REQ-ID)
• Queries — comma-separated override of the queries to probe. Default: primary keyword + top 3 question keywords, recovered from the run's phase-6-seo.md (preferred) or the brief; if neither exists, derive 3-5 natural queries from the page's H1/H2s and say so. Also fold in any FAQ-disposition questions from the Phase 7 review report — the questions the reviewer found readers silently asking are the closest thing to real query data the pipeline produces, and they are exactly what answer engines get asked
• --compare — show deltas vs the previous check (default when history exists)

How to Use

/contentforge:cf-aeo-check https://acme.com/blog/ai-in-healthcare-2026
/contentforge:cf-aeo-check REQ-001 --brand=AcmeMed
/contentforge:cf-aeo-check REQ-001 --queries="ai diagnostics accuracy,is AI better than radiologists"

What Happens

Step 1: Resolve target + queries (10-20 seconds)

• Resolve REQ-ID → published URL via the tracking backend (local / google_sheets / airtable)
• Assemble the query set (see Required Inputs); record which source the queries came from — scorecard honesty rule: derived queries are labeled derived, never passed off as the brief's targets

Step 2: SERP + AI Overview probe (per query, 1-3 minutes total)

For each query, via web search:

1. AI Overview present? yes / no / unclear (record verbatim which sources are visibly cited when the search surface exposes them)
2. Own-domain citation: is the published piece (or its domain) among the cited/visible sources? cited / visible-not-cited / absent
3. Competitor presence: which Phase-1/Phase-2-era competitors (or new domains) hold the citations
4. Organic position band for the published URL where observable: top-3 / top-10 / beyond / not-found — a band, not a fake precise rank

Step 3: On-page extractability audit (30-60 seconds)

Web-fetch the published URL and verify the machine-liftable elements survived the CMS:

• Definition sentence within the first 150 words — intact?
• Publication + last-updated dates visible?
• Structured elements (tables, numbered steps, Q&A headers) from the phase-6 structure manifest — still present in the rendered page?
• Article/Person schema in the page source — present? (CMSes routinely strip JSON-LD; this is the #1 silent AEO regression)
• Author byline with credentials — rendered?

Step 4: Record + delta (10 seconds)

Append the check to ~/.claude-marketing/{brand-slug}/aeo/checks.json (same storage-resolution rules as every other artifact — $CLAUDE_MARKETING_HOME → $CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA → ~/.claude-marketing):

{
  "url": "...", "requirement_id": "REQ-001", "checked_at": "YYYY-MM-DD",
  "queries": [{"q": "...", "source": "phase-6-seo|brief|derived|user",
               "ai_overview": "yes|no|unclear", "own_citation": "cited|visible-not-cited|absent",
               "cited_domains": ["..."], "position_band": "top-3|top-10|beyond|not-found"}],
  "extractability": {"definition_intact": true, "dates_visible": true,
                     "structures_intact": "4/5", "schema_present": false, "byline_rendered": true},
  "engine_coverage": "google-only|google+<connector-name>"
}

If history exists, compute deltas per query (gained / lost / unchanged citation status) and flag any extractability regression since the last check.

Step 5: Report + routing

Render the AEO Check Report: per-query table, extractability checklist, deltas, and one recommended action:

• cited and holding → re-check in 6-12 weeks, no action
• visible-not-cited → extractability fixes first (they're free): restore stripped schema, tighten the definition block — then re-check in 2-4 weeks
• absent while competitors are cited → route to /contentforge:content-refresh with the specific gap evidence (which domains are cited and what they have that the piece lacks)
• Extractability regression (schema stripped, structures flattened by the CMS) → fix at the CMS level; note that /contentforge:cf-publish post-publish verification would have caught this at publish time

Cadence recommendation: check at ~2, ~6 and ~12 weeks post-publication, then quarterly. Record every check — the trend is the product.

Output Example

SYNTHETIC EXAMPLE — fabricated for illustration; never reuse these domains or results.

AEO CITATION CHECK — acme.com/blog/ai-in-healthcare-2026
Checked: 2026-07-30 | Previous: 2026-07-02 | Engine coverage: google-only

| Query                                | AIO | Own citation        | Δ vs last  | Cited domains        |
|--------------------------------------|-----|---------------------|------------|----------------------|
| ai diagnostics precision medicine    | yes | cited               | ▲ gained   | acme.com, nih.gov    |
| how accurate is AI diagnosis         | yes | visible-not-cited   | = unchanged| examplehealth.com    |
| ai diagnostic tools for hospitals    | no  | — (top-10 organic)  | = unchanged| —                    |

Extractability: definition ✓ | dates ✓ | structures 5/5 ✓ | schema ✗ (JSON-LD stripped by CMS) | byline ✓

Action: schema was present at publish and is now missing — restore Article+Person
JSON-LD in the CMS template, then re-check query 2 in ~3 weeks.

Limitations

• Google-observable signals only, unless an AEO-tracking connector is present (then per-connector coverage, labeled)
• AI Overview composition varies by location/session — single probes are evidence, not ground truth; the multi-check trend is the reliable signal
• A citation today is not a citation tomorrow; that is why checks append to history instead of overwriting

Related Skills

• /contentforge:cf-brief — the pre-production half of this loop (AI Overview presence + citation-worthiness plan)
• /contentforge:content-refresh — where absent verdicts with competitor evidence get acted on
• /contentforge:cf-audit — library-wide freshness; this skill is per-piece citation depth
• /contentforge:cf-publish — its post-publish verification is the time-zero baseline this skill compares against