Before an AI system can mention your brand, it must be able to reach, read and understand your content. AI ReadinessThe AI Readiness Score is a maturity level that shows how well a website is prepared for AI search technically, structurally, in terms of content and trust. It is a scoring model, not an official industry standard. Open glossary entry → describes these prerequisites - from technical accessibility for AI crawlersAI crawlers are automated bots that fetch web pages for AI providers in order to find content, make it available for search functions, retrieve it for answers, or, depending on the provider, use it for model training. Open glossary entry → to content that is useful enough to be cited.
The key levers # Reachability do not block AI bots, provide an llms.txtllms.txt is a voluntary Markdown file in a website's root directory that gives language models a compact overview of important content. It is a proposal or de facto format, not a binding official web standard. Open glossary entry → file and keep key pages indexableIndexing is the step in which a search engine processes crawled content and decides whether a URL is added to the search index. Only indexed pages can appear in search results. Open glossary entry → .Readability serve important content in HTMLHyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the markup language for web pages. It defines the structure and content of a page, such as headings, paragraphs, links and images. Open glossary entry → instead of relying only on JavaScript; use clean semantic markupSemantic HTML means using HTML elements according to their meaning, such as for the main content or for navigation, instead of building everything from generic containers. Open glossary entry → .Citation readiness use clear facts, FAQs, comparison tables and source references that AI systems can understand and reuse.What is llms.txt? # llmsA Large Language Model (LLM) is an AI model that learns from large amounts of text and generates formulated answers from it. LLMs form the core of generative answer systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini. Open glossary entry → .txt is a simple text file in the root directory of your domain that points AI systems to your most relevant content. It is similar in spirit to robots.txtThe robots.txt is a publicly accessible text file in a site's root directory. It tells crawlers which URLs they may fetch and therefore controls crawling. Open glossary entry → , but intended for AI usage guidance.
How RankScan helps # RankScan measures AI Readiness across reachability, structure, content qualityHigh-quality content comes from better information value, not from more words. It fully answers the search intent, provides concrete facts, shows expertise and supports key statements with sources. Open glossary entry → , trust signalsTrust signals are visible elements of a website that build credibility, such as an imprint, contact details, privacy information, sources, reviews, update dates and transparent company information. Open glossary entry → and topic coverage. It shows which blockers should be fixed first.