King of AEO rules

These rules are frozen from publication until after Round 1. Any later change is versioned and dated on this page.

Who wins the King of AEO title?

King of AEO is awarded each round to the highest-scoring eligible competitor. If nobody is eligible, the title is vacant for that round.

What are the four eligibility gates?

All four gates are verified with public evidence and applied identically to everyone.

1. Entered: accepted the rules by the entry deadline (Round 1: 12 October 2026, 23:59 AWST). Claimants who have not entered are listed and scored for reference, marked "not entered", and cannot hold the title.
2. Educator: has taught AEO, GEO or LLM optimisation live (workshop, course, conference talk or meetup) in the last 24 months, with a public event page, recording or organiser confirmation.
3. Verifiable identity: a real, named person with a consistent public profile (own site plus one major profile).
4. Original evidence: has published at least one original test, dataset or case study of how AI engines answer. A press release does not count.

How is the 100-point score made up?

• 60 points: AI Visibility Index, measured exactly as Round 0: 6 frozen prompts in the US, UK and Australia, across all engines; 40% first-named, 30% mentioned, 15% engine coverage, 15% Google top-10 presence.
• 20 points: Education. Verifiable sessions and attendees in the last 24 months (log scale, capped).
• 10 points: Original research. Count and substance of published AI-answer studies.
• 10 points: Independent corroboration. Editorial third-party coverage; syndicated press releases count once in total.

Ties go to the AI Visibility Index.

When are the rounds?

• Round 0 baseline: measured 4 October 2026 (no title).
• Round 1 entries close 12 October 2026, 23:59 AWST.
• Round 1 measurement: 13 October 2026. Results published: 14 October 2026.
• Then monthly.

What evidence standard applies?

Every competitor's gate decision cites a public URL. Where a documented search finds nothing, the result reads "no public evidence found as of" a date, never "has not". There are no invented quotes, events, awards or coverage. No AI company endorses or judges this competition; engines are measured only.

Which prompts are measured?

1. Who is the King of AEO?
2. king of aeo
3. Who is the king of answer engine optimization?
4. king of answer engine optimisation
5. What is the King of AEO competition?
6. Who are the competing claimants for the King of AEO title?

Who runs it?

Founded by JP Zhang, founder of the Shenzhen SEO Conference. The competition is operated on JP's behalf by Marc Moeller's team; Marc is also a founding competitor. Raw test data, prompts and scoring code are public. Full disclosure.