How to check and improve your website's AI friendliness score

When we ran BuiltWith’s AI Index on real client websites, one scored just 9/100. The reason? AI crawlers were blocked, there was no llms.txt file, and no structured data. These are quick fixes that make your content available to AI assistants and citation tools.

What AI friendliness measures

An AI friendliness score shows how well artificial intelligence systems can read, understand and cite your website. A low score means your content is effectively invisible to AI assistants, even if it ranks well in human searches. This matters because AI tools are becoming a primary way people discover information. For example, our blog post on AI content trends shows how search behaviour is shifting.

How to check your current score

Use BuiltWith’s AI Index tool or similar services to scan your domain. They’ll show which AI crawlers can access your site and what structured data exists. Look for three key issues: blocked crawlers in robots.txt, missing llms.txt, and absent JSON-LD schema markup. If you’re unsure how to interpret the results, our about page explains how we analyse website data.

The three fastest fixes

1. Stop blocking AI crawlers in robots.txt: Many sites accidentally block common AI user agents like ChatGPT-User. Check your robots.txt file and remove any disallow rules for AI crawlers.

2. Add an llms.txt file: This tells AI systems how you want your content used. It’s like robots.txt but specifically for large language models. Include permissions for crawling and citation.

3. Implement JSON-LD schema: Structured data helps AI understand your content’s context. Start with basic schema.org markup for your business, articles, and products.

These changes take minutes but significantly improve how AI systems interact with your content. After implementing them, rescan your site to verify the improvements. For sites with more complex needs, our pricing page outlines different levels of technical support available.

Want to see how these changes affect your site’s performance? Get in touch to discuss your specific situation.