OpenAEO: A Self-Hosted AI Search Engine Citation Monitoring Tool

OpenAEO is an open-source AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) citation monitoring tool that runs as an MCP server, helping website owners track the citations of their domains in AI Q&A engines like Perplexity. Compared to enterprise-level AEO solutions, it offers an extremely low-cost, fully self-hosted alternative. Its core features include real-time citation checks, batch report generation, and historical data tracking, empowering content creators and brand marketers to optimize their visibility strategies in the AI search era.

The core goal of traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to improve a website's ranking on search result pages of Google, Bing, etc. However, with the popularity of generative AI applications like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, users' search behavior has undergone a fundamental change—more people directly ask AI for integrated answers instead of lists of web links. This gave birth to the concept of AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): focusing on citations and exposure in AI-generated answers. For content creators, brand marketers, and SEO practitioners, tracking visibility in AI answers is crucial.

OpenAEO provides three core tools covering the entire AEO monitoring process:

1. Real-time Citation Check (aeo_check)：Instantly checks whether a specific domain is cited in AI answers for a single query, e.g., querying "best note-taking apps" and checking the citation status of notion.so to quickly verify the effectiveness of content strategies.
2. Batch Report Generation (aeo_report)：Supports batch checking of multiple queries and automatically generates comprehensive reports, suitable for tracking competitors, monitoring brand mentions, or evaluating the effectiveness of content marketing campaigns.
3. Historical Data Tracking (aeo_history)：Automatically saves check results to local storage (default: ~/.open-aeo/history.json). Users can track citation trends, identify changes in AI citations of content, and assist in long-term strategy adjustments.

OpenAEO adopts the Port-Adapter pattern (Hexagonal Architecture), decoupling core business logic from external dependencies:

• IAnswerEngine Interface: Abstracts the search capabilities of AI answer engines. Currently implemented by the PerplexityApi adapter, it can be easily extended to support other engines (e.g., Bing Copilot, Google SGE) in the future.
• IStorage Interface: Abstracts data persistence operations. Currently implemented by the JsonStorage adapter (local JSON file storage), it can be replaced with database storage. This design ensures high scalability and maintainability of the project, facilitating community contributions of new features.

Deployment requires Node.js 20+ and pnpm: Clone the GitHub repository → Install dependencies → Build the project. The key configuration is to add OpenAEO to Claude Desktop's MCP server (modify claude_desktop_config.json to specify the entry path and Perplexity API key). After restarting, the tool will appear in the available list. When using it, interact via natural language—for example, send instructions to Claude like "Check the citation of notion.so in the query 'best note-taking apps'" or "Generate an AEO report for 5 queries", and Claude will automatically call the tool to return structured results.

Transparent Cost: The main cost comes from Perplexity API calls (approximately $5 per 1000 requests), so the monthly cost is low for small to medium monitoring needs. For privacy, fully local storage is adopted—all historical data is saved on the user's local machine and not uploaded to third-party cloud services, making it suitable for handling sensitive data or regulated industries.

Current Limitations: Only supports the Perplexity API and does not provide content optimization suggestions. Future directions include: supporting more AI answer engines, integrating content optimization suggestions, adding competitor citation analysis, developing a visual dashboard, and supporting team collaboration and multi-user management.

OpenAEO brings AI visibility monitoring capabilities—originally accessible only to large enterprises— to a wide audience in the form of open-source self-hosting, without the need for huge budgets or complex IT infrastructure. For content creators and marketers who want to stay competitive in the AI search era, it provides an ideal starting point to understand their AI visibility status and optimize long-term content strategies. As AI search engines reshape the way information is discovered, such tools will become increasingly important.