What the ai readiness checker checks

Six signals. One score.

Each category is weighted by how much it changes whether an AI assistant cites the page. The weights add up to 100 points.

/robots.txt18 bots
  • User-agent: OAI-SearchBotAllow /
  • User-agent: ClaudeBotAllow /
  • User-agent: PerplexityBotAllow /
  • User-agent: GPTBotDisallow /

AI crawler access

25 pts

Reads robots.txt and evaluates 18 crawlers, from OAI-SearchBot and ClaudeBot to PerplexityBot and Google-Extended, against the exact page you enter.

/llms.txtFound
#
>
##
-[
]
-[
]

llms.txt

15 pts

Looks for /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt and validates the format: a title, a one-line summary and links to key pages.

application/ld+json
{
"@type": "Organization",
"sameAs":
}
ArticleFAQPageBreadcrumbList

Structured data

20 pts

Parses every JSON-LD block and checks for Organization, page-type and FAQ or HowTo schema with author and dates.

H1
H2
?
H2
?

Content structure

20 pts

Counts H1s, checks heading order, question-style headings, lists, word count, paragraph length and semantic landmarks.

<html lang="en">
<link rel="canonical">
<meta name="description">
<main>
text 18%

Machine readability

10 pts

Language attribute, meta description, canonical, Open Graph, server-rendered text and a reachable sitemap.

author
Updated
HTTPS
/about/contact

Trust signals

10 pts

HTTPS, a named author, visible dates, About and Contact links, and server response time.

Why it matters

AI answers cite sources. Three questions decide.

AI assistants answer a growing share of searches, and they answer with citations. Whether your page is one of them comes down to three questions.

01

Can the crawler read it?

A single Disallow rule for OAI-SearchBot removes you from ChatGPT search. A client-rendered page hands most crawlers an empty shell. Access and raw HTML come first.

AI crawler accessMachine readability
02

Does the model understand it?

llms.txt tells an AI system what your site is in one request. Structured data tells it who published the page, when, and what kind of thing it is. Without both, it is guessing.

llms.txtStructured data
03

Can it lift a clean answer?

Models quote passages, not pages. Question-shaped headings, short paragraphs, lists and a named author give them a passage worth citing and a reason to trust it.

Content structureTrust signals
How to improve

Work top to bottom. Most sites climb a full grade after step two.

  1. 1

    Open robots.txt and allow AI search crawlers

    Make sure OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot are not blocked. Decide separately whether to allow training crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot.

  2. 2

    Publish llms.txt at your domain root

    Create a Markdown file with an H1 for your site name, a blockquote summary and sections of links to your most important pages. Our llms.txt generator builds one from your sitemap.

  3. 3

    Add structured data

    Include Organization schema with sameAs links on every page, the matching page-type schema (Article, Product, SoftwareApplication) and FAQPage where you answer questions.

  4. 4

    Restructure the content for quoting

    Use one H1, phrase H2s as the questions people ask, answer each in the first sentence, and break comparisons into lists and tables. Keep paragraphs under 120 words.

  5. 5

    Show who wrote it and when

    Add a byline, a last-updated date, and links to About and Contact pages. Expose the dates in meta tags or Article schema.

Score after fixes
41 → 93
F
D
C
B
A
robots.txt
llms.txt
FAQPage

Fix every item on this list, automatically

SiteLift publishes AI-ready articles with structured data, FAQs and llms.txt, then distributes them so AI assistants find and cite you.

No credit card required

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about the ai readiness checker.

It measures six things a page needs to be cited by AI assistants: crawler access in robots.txt, an llms.txt file, structured data, content structure, machine readability and trust signals. Each category is weighted and the total is a score out of 100 with a letter grade.