> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getcited.in/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Answer-Block Formatting

> How Cited measures whether your pages format content as discrete, citable answers — FAQ schema, accordion patterns, and question-style headings.

AI answers cite content that's already formatted like an answer — discrete question-and-answer blocks, accordion patterns, headings that pose the question your page resolves. Pages that hide answers inside long unstructured prose get passed over for sites that format for the cite.

## Methodology

Cited samples up to 5 pages from your site and looks for three structural patterns AI models recognize as answer blocks. Each pattern is worth points; you don't need all three to score well.

**FAQ structures.** The strongest signal. We detect FAQ content in three ways: JSON-LD `FAQPage` schema (the explicit machine-readable declaration), HTML elements with `class` or `id` matching `faq` or `question` whose text content contains a `?`, and `<details><summary>` accordion pairs. Any page with at least one FAQ structure earns 4 points — this is the single largest contributor to the score because FAQ schema produces direct AI answer citations more reliably than any other pattern.

**Accordion elements.** The `<details>` and `<summary>` HTML pair is a native browser accordion that AI parsers treat as an implicit Q\&A structure. We count `<details>` elements separately from FAQ detection because some sites use accordions for non-FAQ content (product specs, terms-and-conditions). Pages with accordions earn 2 points if the FAQ check hasn't already maxed that tier.

**Question-style headings.** H2 and H3 headings that start with a question word — *what*, *how*, *why*, *when*, *where*, *who*, *which*, *can I*, *do I*, *does*, *is there*, *is it*, *should*, *will*, *are* — signal to AI parsers that the content under each heading is an answer to that question. Without FAQ or accordion structures, three or more question-style headings on a page earns 3 points; five or more earns 4. When FAQ or accordion structures exist, question headings earn 1 bonus point.

**Multi-page consistency bonus.** Sites with answer-block patterns on more than one sampled page earn an additional 1 point. AI models cite sites that consistently format for citation; one-off FAQ pages signal less authority than sitewide structure.

The signal scores out of 7. Sites with strong FAQ schema across multiple pages plus question-style headings typically score 6-7/7. Sites with one FAQ page and no other structure score 4-5/7. Sites with only prose content and no question patterns score 0/7 and are flagged.

## Verification

You can verify our finding yourself in a browser.

**Step 1: Open the pages we sampled.** Cited reports the URLs we tested. Open each in a new tab.

**Step 2: Check for FAQ schema.** Right-click the page, View Page Source, and search (`Cmd+F` / `Ctrl+F`) for `application/ld+json`. Inside any `<script type="application/ld+json">` block, look for `"@type": "FAQPage"`. If present, the page declares FAQ content explicitly — this is the strongest signal.

**Step 3: Check for accordion elements.** In the page source, search for `<details>` and `<summary>`. Every `<details>` element produces a native browser accordion. If you find several, your page has implicit Q\&A structure.

**Step 4: Check for question headings.** Open DevTools (`Cmd+Option+I` / `Ctrl+Shift+I`), Console tab, and run:

```javascript theme={null}
[...document.querySelectorAll('h2,h3')].filter(h => /^(what|how|why|when|where|who|which|can\s+i|do\s+i|does|is\s+there|is\s+it|should|will|are)\b/i.test(h.textContent.trim())).map(h => `${h.tagName}: ${h.textContent.trim()}`)
```

This returns every H2 or H3 that starts with a question word — the same set Cited counts. If you find three or more, you have a meaningful question-heading pattern; five or more is excellent.

**Step 5: Validate FAQ schema with Google's tool.** Paste the page URL into [Google's Rich Results Test](https://search.google.com/test/rich-results). If the test detects FAQPage schema, AI models that consume Google's index will detect it too.

If your verification disagrees with Cited's finding, that's a bug — let us know.

## Technical detail

FAQ structures are recognized by AI models through three layered signals: explicit schema declarations (Schema.org `FAQPage`, defined in 2017 and continuously refined), HTML semantic elements (`<details>` / `<summary>` introduced in HTML5, 2014), and pattern-based content extraction (question-form headings paired with answer paragraphs).

**Detection logic.** Cited's scanner runs three parallel detection passes per sampled page:

* **JSON-LD FAQPage parsing.** Every `<script type="application/ld+json">` element is parsed. Blocks with top-level `@type: "FAQPage"` (or arrays containing one) are extracted. Each `mainEntity` item with a non-empty `name` field is recorded as a Q\&A pair.
* **FAQ-class element scanning.** Elements matching the CSS selectors `[class*="faq" i]`, `[id*="faq" i]`, `[class*="question" i]`, or `[id*="question" i]` (all case-insensitive) are inspected. Any element whose text content includes a `?` is recorded as a question; the next sibling element's text is recorded as the answer.
* **`<details>` / `<summary>` extraction.** Every `<details>` element with a `<summary>` child is recorded. The summary becomes the question; the remaining children become the answer. Separately, the total count of `<details>` elements is captured for the accordion check.

**Question-heading detection.** The scanner applies a regex against H2 and H3 headings: `/^(what|how|why|when|where|who|which|can\s+i|do\s+i|does|is\s+there|is\s+it|should|will|are)\b/i`. Case-insensitive, word-boundary anchored, matches the heading's text content after trimming whitespace.

**Score combination.** The three patterns aren't strictly additive — the scoring logic prioritizes FAQ presence (worth 4 of the 7 points), then accordions (worth 2 if FAQ didn't max), then question headings (worth 2-4 standalone or +1 as a bonus when other patterns exist), plus a 1-point multi-page bonus. The total is clamped to 7.

**Edge cases the scanner handles:**

* **Malformed JSON-LD.** Schema blocks that fail to parse (syntax errors, truncated content) are silently skipped. The other detection passes still run.
* **Nested FAQPage in an array.** Some CMSes wrap schema in an array. The scanner checks both `data["@type"] === "FAQPage"` and `Array.isArray(data) && data.find(d => d["@type"] === "FAQPage")`.
* **FAQ-class elements without `?`.** A `<div class="faq-section">` containing only a heading and intro text doesn't count — the `?` filter ensures we only capture actual questions, not section wrappers.
* **`<details>` without `<summary>`.** Rare but technically valid HTML. These contribute to the count but not to the FAQ list because there's no question text to extract.
* **Question headings inside FAQ structures.** A page with explicit FAQPage schema AND question-style H2s gets credit for both — the FAQ count drives the primary score, and the question headings add the +1 bonus.

**What this signal does not measure:**

* **Answer quality.** The scanner detects that a page has Q\&A structure, not whether the answers are good. A FAQPage with three useless one-line answers passes the same as one with detailed answers.
* **Answer length.** Some AI citation studies suggest answers between 40 and 80 words cite most reliably. The scanner doesn't model this; it counts presence.
* **Question-answer pairing accuracy.** For the next-sibling FAQ-class detection, the scanner assumes the element following a question is the answer. Real sites sometimes have wrapper divs or styling elements between them; in those cases the extracted "answer" may be a wrapper.
* **Non-English question patterns.** The question-word regex is English-only. Pages in other languages with valid question structures score lower on the question-heading check, but FAQ schema and accordions still detect correctly.

For brands without any answer-block structure today, the highest-leverage fix is adding FAQ schema to one cornerstone page — the page you most want AI to cite when users ask about your category. This earns 4 points immediately and signals to AI that the page is citation-ready.

See also: [Heading Hierarchy](/signals/heading-hierarchy), [Content Depth](/signals/content-depth), [JSON-LD Structured Data](/signals/json-ld-structured-data).