This page is about one tool’s data: the AI Visibility Checker. For where these scores stand among the 25 tools with a published benchmark, and the distributions, see SEO Score Benchmarks — the methodology and privacy notes are there too.
Which of the measured signals are missing
On the GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) side, this tool does not measure ranking but a readiness list defined by SeoMods: is the page reachable in raw HTML, is it clear who wrote it, is a date visible, is there schema describing who the site is. The items below are the signals SeoMods uses in its AI visibility score; the percentage is the share of scans in which the check was not met. No claim is made that every AI system uses these signals.
| Check | Not met (share of scans) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| llms.txt present | 79% | Partial |
| Publish / update dates | 67% | Partial |
| Organization / WebSite schema | 59% | Hard fail |
| Author / byline | 58% | Partial |
| About page linked | 56% | Partial |
| JSON-LD structured data | 55% | Hard fail |
| Question-style headings | 50% | Partial |
| Social / sameAs profiles linked | 48% | Partial |
| In-depth content (≥800 words) | 40% | Partial |
| Content in raw HTML (server-rendered) | 31% | Hard fail |
| Cites external sources | 27% | Partial |
| XML sitemap available | 24% | Partial |
The rate is the share of scans in which a SeoMods check was not met. It is SeoMods’ criterion, not Google’s assessment of these pages. “Hard fail” means the check’s full weight is deducted from the SeoMods score; “partial” means part of it.
The weakest area
Brand & entity strength leads by a clear margin: it was the lowest-scoring area in 53% of scans. Second is trust & freshness at 24%, third ai crawler access at 16%. The first measures missing Organization and WebSite schema, absent sameAs profiles and an inconsistent brand name; the third is agents like GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot being blocked in robots.txt without anyone noticing. Reading: in this sample, AI crawlers being blocked in robots.txt is the weakest area less often than missing identity markup is. The ranking rests on SeoMods’ area scores; it does not show how much weight any AI system gives those areas.
Plenty of schema — just not the schema that says who you are
One detail stands out: JSON-LD structured data is entirely absent in 55% of scans, while the Organization/WebSite schema that identifies the site is missing in 59%. The gap is small but it points one way: not every site that adds schema adds the schema describing itself. The same pattern shows in the byline — no author in 58% of scans and no publish date in 67%. These are the identity and date signals SeoMods measures in its AI visibility score; how any AI system treats their absence cannot be inferred from this data.
llms.txt: its place in this benchmark
Data: no llms.txt file was found in 79% of scans. Context: llms.txt is one of the signals used in this benchmark; it should not be treated as a file Google Search requires or as a Google ranking factor. It is a convention rather than a standard, and no system is obliged to honour it. SeoMods scores it as one check in its AI visibility score; its absence should not be read as an SEO error.
Where does my score sit?
A score from the AI Visibility Checker can be read against the five values below. All of them are calculated from the scans in this benchmark: they place a SeoMods score within this sample, not in Google’s results.
| Percentile | Score | What it means for a score |
|---|---|---|
| P10 | 18 | About one scan in ten scored 18 or lower. Below it, a page is in the lowest tenth of this sample. |
| P25 | 37 | The edge of the bottom quarter. A score under 37 is below about three quarters of the scans. |
| Median | 60 | The middle of the sample: half the scans scored lower, half higher. A score of 60 is the typical result here. |
| P75 | 82 | Where the top quarter begins. A score of 82 or more is at or above about three quarters of the scans. |
| P90 | 94 | Where the top tenth begins. A score of 94 or more is among the highest 10% of scans in this sample. |
Percentiles describe the sites SeoMods scanned, not the whole web, and they apply to this tool only: the same number on another tool sits somewhere else.
The charts
The charts below carry this page’s figures in a form that can leave it: each one states the tool, the period and the sample on the image itself. They are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link back to this page.
Month by month
This page adds every published month together. Underneath it, each month is frozen as an edition of its own whose figures are never edited again — which is the only reason two months can be set side by side at all. Below is the AI Visibility Checker across the 2 published editions, with the combined figure in the last row of the table.
Between August 2026 and September 2026 the median went from 67 to 59, and the share of scans at 80 or above went from 35% to 24%. The two months do not measure the same sites — the September 2026 sample has about 3 times as many sites — so read the gap as a change in the cross-section measured, not as the same sites getting better or worse.
| Edition | Median | vs. previous | Scored 80+ | Issues/run | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | 67 | baseline | 35% | 5.9 | 1,467 |
| September 2026 | 59 | −8 pts | 24% | 6.5 | 3,844 |
| All published months, combined | 60 | — | 27% | 6.3 | 5,311 |
Reading a monthly difference. Each month is a separate sample, and its size changes from month to month. A change in sample size can move a median and a distribution by itself, so a monthly difference should not be mistaken for a change in scores: it does not show that sites improved or got worse.
Which checks moved
Each check’s rate in the first edition that measured it, beside its rate in the latest. Moves under two points are marked as no change: these are independent monthly samples of a shifting set of sites, and a difference that small is not evidence that anything on the web changed.
| Check | Not met in August 2026 | Not met in September 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| llms.txt present | 70% · August 2026 | 82% · September 2026 | +12 pp |
| Social / sameAs profiles linked | 41% · August 2026 | 51% · September 2026 | +10 pp |
| JSON-LD structured data Hard fail | 48% · August 2026 | 57% · September 2026 | +9 pp |
| Organization / WebSite schema Hard fail | 53% · August 2026 | 61% · September 2026 | +8 pp |
| About page linked | 52% · August 2026 | 57% · September 2026 | +5 pp |
| Author / byline | 60% · August 2026 | 57% · September 2026 | −3 pp |
| In-depth content (≥800 words) | 37% · August 2026 | 40% · September 2026 | +3 pp |
| Content in raw HTML (server-rendered) Hard fail | 33% · August 2026 | 30% · September 2026 | −3 pp |
| Question-style headings | 48% · August 2026 | 50% · September 2026 | no change |
| Cites external sources | 25% · August 2026 | 27% · September 2026 | no change |
| Publish / update dates | 66% · August 2026 | 67% · September 2026 | no change |
What this score does not measure
- It is not a direct measurement of the signals every AI system uses. Which system uses which signal, and how, is not public; the score measures the checks SeoMods chose.
- It does not measure whether a page is actually cited in AI answers. It measures readiness on the page, not what any assistant returned.
- It is not a Google ranking. A high score does not guarantee a better position, and a low one does not mean Google has penalised the page.
About this benchmark. This benchmark is calculated from data on the sites SeoMods has scanned. The results do not necessarily represent all websites, or a random selection of them. The scores express SeoMods’ own measurement and scoring criteria; they are not ranking, quality, E-E-A-T or AI visibility scores issued by Google. Sample, anonymization and licence: the full methodology.
Frequently asked questions
What score do most sites get on an AI visibility check?
The median is 60/100 and 27% of scans reach 80+, but the spread on either side of it is very wide. Look at the grade mix: 2,015 scans scored F while 320 earned an A+. The 10th percentile is 18 and the 90th is 94. A gap that wide shows that in this sample the SeoMods AI visibility score spreads across a very broad range of sites. The score follows SeoMods’ own check list; it is not a score given by any AI system.
Which AI-readiness area is weakest?
Brand & entity strength is the weakest area in 53% of scans — a clear margin over the runner-up, trust & freshness, at 24%. It measures missing Organization and WebSite schema, absent sameAs profiles and an inconsistent brand name. These are the signals measured in this benchmark; no claim is made that every AI system uses them.
My site has JSON-LD — why is my AI visibility score still low?
Because using schema and using the schema that describes you are different things. JSON-LD is entirely absent in 55% of scans, while the Organization/WebSite schema that identifies the site is missing in 59% — so some of the sites that do add markup are adding product, article or FAQ schema and skipping the markup that states who they are. The SeoMods AI visibility score counts that markup as a check of its own, which is why the score can stay low.
Does adding llms.txt affect Google rankings?
There is no data showing that, and this benchmark does not measure it. llms.txt is one of the signals used in this benchmark; it should not be treated as a file Google Search requires or as a Google ranking factor. In this sample the file was not found in 79% of scans; that rate describes how rarely the file is used, not a consequence of leaving it out.
Does the AI visibility score show that a page will be cited in AI answers?
No. The score measures whether the signals SeoMods chose are present on the page: author, date, schema, sameAs, HTML accessibility and so on. Which AI system uses which signal, and how, is not public; so the score is an indicator of readiness, not a measurement or a guarantee of being cited. Nor is it a score issued by Google.