Schema Validation & AEO
Table of Contents
- Schema & JSON-LD Authority
- llms.txt AI Sitemaps
- Answer Engine Dominance
- ADA Compliance Hardening
- Broken Search Data
- Invisible to AI Chatbots
- Rivals Capture Voice Search
- ADA Lawsuit Liability
The Invisible Business#
When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI for a recommendation in your industry, your name either comes up or it does not. There is no page two. There is no “near the top.” The AI picks an answer. One answer.
Right now, your competitors with valid schema and structured data are the ones getting cited. Your website might rank on Google. But if your data is not machine-readable, AI assistants skip you entirely.
This is not SEO. This is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). The rules changed. Most businesses have not noticed yet.
How AI Picks Winners#
AI assistants use a two-stage process to select answers:
- Consensus Building. The model scans multiple sources to determine which business is the authoritative answer for a given query. Structured JSON-LD data gets weighted heavily because it removes ambiguity.
- Detail Retrieval. Once the model selects a source, it pulls specific facts -pricing, services, hours, location -directly from schema markup. Plain text gets scraped probabilistically. Schema gets read deterministically.
If your competitors have valid schema and you do not, the AI has already made its decision before your content is even evaluated.
Schema Drift Kills Trust#
Schema Markup must match the visual content on your page. When your JSON-LD says one thing and your page says another -Schema Drift -AI models flag the data as unreliable. Your confidence score drops. Citations stop.
Common drift scenarios:
- Business hours in schema do not match the hours on your contact page
- Services listed in JSON-LD no longer exist or have different names
- Pricing in schema has not been updated since last year
- Address or phone number changed but schema was never touched
One mismatch. That is all it takes for the AI to pick someone else.
Legal Exposure#
Schema is a technical standard. The data it carries is subject to consumer protection law.
- Deceptive Trade Practices. Schema advertising pricing or services not actually available creates bait-and-switch liability
- ADA Compliance. Incorrectly structured data interferes with screen readers. Lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act are increasing
- GDPR/CCPA. PII in public-facing schema triggers regulatory fines
Most businesses do not know their schema is broken. Most agencies do not check.
What We Implement#
| Deliverable | What It Does |
|---|---|
| JSON-LD Schema | Server-side structured data -services, business info, FAQ, articles -readable by every AI crawler |
| Schema Validation | Tested against official validators. Zero errors. Zero warnings |
| llms.txt | Machine-readable site roadmap specifically for LLMs and answer engines |
| Schema Drift Audit | Cross-check JSON-LD against visual page content for mismatches |
| ADA Structure Review | Semantic HTML and schema alignment for screen reader compatibility |
Everything is rendered server-side. No JavaScript injection. AI bots do not execute JavaScript -if your schema depends on it, bots never see it.
Validation Tools#
We verify all implementations against official industry standards. You can test your own site now:
- Official Validator: Schema.org Validator
- Rich Results Test: Google Rich Results Test
Deep-Dive Guides#
We publish the technical methodology behind our implementations:
- Implement Schema in Hugo -Server-side JSON-LD delivery, entity linking, trust signals
- llms.txt Creation for Hugo -The llms.txt standard for AI indexability and brand authority
Why Digital Crunch#
Digital Crunch is AEO Certified -a rare distinction in technical AI implementation. We do not guess at schema. We engineer it.
- Deterministic data structures that remove model uncertainty
- Security-first implementation -schema handled with the same rigor as any data exposure surface
- Continuous validation -schema tested on every deployment, not just at launch
Most agencies optimize for Google. We optimize for every AI that is replacing Google.
AEO Certified. Schema Engineered. AI Search Hardened.