How is this check scored?
Every threshold on this page comes from one source: the citation-readiness scorer Gadex publishes. Per Gadex's own build, the weights below are read directly from that scorer and a test fails the build if the documented figure stops matching the applied one. A pass earns the full 8 points, a warning earns half, a fail earns none.
| Result | How it is decided |
|---|---|
| Pass | Three or more subheadings, with at least a third question-shaped. |
| Warn | Two or more subheadings but few questions among them. |
| Fail | Fewer than two subheadings. |
Why does this check exist?
Retrieval increasingly happens at section level, not page level. A heading that states the question its section answers turns that section into an independently addressable unit — it can be matched to a query and quoted without the surrounding page.
A question-shaped heading also forces the section to answer something. "How does GEO differ from SEO?" commits the following paragraphs; "Our Approach" commits to nothing and can absorb any content at all.
The threshold is a third, not all. A page of nothing but questions reads like an FAQ, and not every section is a question.
How do you fix it?
- Rewrite label headings as the question a reader would type. "Pricing" becomes "What does it cost?"; "Methodology" becomes "How did we measure this?".
- Delete headings that describe the document rather than the content — "Introduction", "Overview", "Our Approach".
- Make sure each section actually answers its heading. A question-shaped heading over a section that wanders is worse than a label, because it promises something specific.
How often do pages fail this check?
Per Gadex's own measurement across the 91 content pages on this site, using the checker published at /tools/ai-search-visibility-checker/: 73 pass, 18 carry a warning, and 0 fail. Per that same run, 20 per cent of Gadex pages have something to fix on this check alone.
Those figures include the pages Gadex fails. A checker whose author exempts itself from the checking is marketing rather than measurement, so the numbers are generated from the built site on every deploy and the build fails if the published figures stop matching what Gadex actually scores. When Gadex fixes pages, the numbers move on their own.
What does this check miss?
- The check reads heading levels from markup. Text styled to look like a heading without being one is invisible to it.
- "Question-shaped" means ending in a question mark or starting with how, what, why, when, where, which, who, can, do, does, is, are, should, will. A question phrased another way is missed.
- It counts structure, not hierarchy. A page with three H2s and no logical nesting passes.
Where does this guidance come from?
The scoring rules are Gadex's. The reasoning about why these properties matter draws on the platforms' own published guidance:
- Google Search Central: creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — on self-evident expertise, sourcing, and who the content is for.
- Google Search Central: Article structured data — on author and date fields, and what they are used for.
- OpenAI: bots and crawlers — on how ChatGPT fetches and attributes pages it surfaces.
How we measured this
The counts above come from running the Gadex scorer over the built HTML of every content page on this site, reading each page's main content region only — nav, header and footer links are excluded, because a visitor pastes an article rather than a whole document. Legal boilerplate, the 404 page and generated tool result renderings are excluded as pages where the score would be meaningless. Per that run, the 91 pages counted are the ones a reader could plausibly ask an assistant to summarise.
The scoring thresholds on this page are read from the same module the tool runs, and a test fails the build if the weight documented here stops matching the weight the scorer applies. What none of this can tell you is whether an answer engine will cite a page: citation depends on the model, the prompt, the index and the competing sources, none of which is visible in your markup.
Common questions
Do question headings work on commercial pages?
Usually better than labels do. A buyer arrives with questions — what does it cost, how long does it take, what happens if it does not work — and a heading that names one of those is both more useful and more retrievable than "Features".
Is there such a thing as too many headings?
Yes. A heading every two sentences fragments the page and gives retrieval too little context per section. The check has no upper bound, but readability does.