Top fixes
- Crawler access (+2 points): Add a group for GPTBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and the others with "Allow: /" (or drop the blanket "Disallow: /") if you want answer engines to cite you. How to fix
- MCP census entry (+2 points): Expose a Streamable HTTP MCP endpoint at /mcp (or a paid x402 route) so agents can call you, not just read you. How to fix
- Machine-readable surfaces (+1 point): Publish /llms.txt (a short Markdown guide to your key pages); one agent surface: /openapi.json, /.well-known/agent-card.json, or /.well-known/x402 if you sell to agents. How to fix
Ordered by points recoverable. Each area: 2/2 pass, 1/2 warn, 0/2 fail.
scientificamerican.com is graded D. The $49 AI Visibility Full Report turns the 2 failing checks above (crawler access, machine-readable surfaces) into a prioritized, specific fix list for scientificamerican.com, and tests 8 real buyer questions across ChatGPT-class models to show what AI answers say about you today.
Get the full report — $49 Stripe checkout asks for your brand name and category; the report is ready about 60 seconds after payment. Legal notices and the MCP census entry are not in this report (free: Compliance Desk check, census claim).
Crawler access (robots.txt)
0/2 · fail
4 of 8 AI crawlers may read the site, 4 disallowed
- GET /robots.txt -> HTTP 200, 615 B, 12 user-agent groups
- Allowed: ClaudeBot (via *) (5 path rules), OAI-SearchBot (via *) (5 path rules), Amazonbot (via *) (5 path rules), Bytespider (via *) (5 path rules)
- Disallowed: GPTBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, CCBot
- Sitemap declared: https://www.scientificamerican.com/platform/syndication/sitemaps/
Fix: Add a group for GPTBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and the others with "Allow: /" (or drop the blanket "Disallow: /") if you want answer engines to cite you.
Machine-readable surfaces
1/2 · warn
None of the 7 machine-readable surfaces is published (a sitemap is declared in robots.txt)
- /llms.txt: HTTP 404
- /sitemap.xml: HTTP 404
- /.well-known/x402: HTTP 404
- /.well-known/agent-card.json: HTTP 404
- /.well-known/mcp-registry-auth: HTTP 404
- /openapi.json: HTTP 404
- /ai.txt: HTTP 404
- Sitemap declared in robots.txt instead: https://www.scientificamerican.com/platform/syndication/sitemaps/
Fix: Publish /llms.txt (a short Markdown guide to your key pages); one agent surface: /openapi.json, /.well-known/agent-card.json, or /.well-known/x402 if you sell to agents.
Readable without JavaScript
2/2 · pass
Home page is readable
- GET https://scientificamerican.com/ -> HTTP 200 after 1 redirect (final: https://www.scientificamerican.com/), text/html, 370 KB
- 12,327 characters of visible text with scripts, styles and tags removed; <title>: "Scientific American"
- 1 external script, 4 inline; <noscript> absent
- first words: "Skip to main content Scientific American October Issue Newsletters Podcasts Games Explore Biology Chemistry Environment Health Math Mind & B..."
Fix: Nothing to fix here.
Structured data
2/2 · pass
2 JSON-LD blocks, Open Graph complete
- 2 JSON-LD blocks: @type WebSite, NewsMediaOrganization
- Open Graph: og:title "Scientific American"; og:description present
- meta description: present
Fix: Nothing to fix here.
Legal notices (TAKE IT DOWN desk check)
not measured
Unavailable
- takeitdown.agentexchange.work/check.json: refused takeitdown.agentexchange.work: hosts on agentexchange.work cannot be graded from inside the same Cloudflare zone; every check would - unavailable
Fix: Re-run in a few minutes; the notice check could not be completed.
MCP census entry (index.agentexchange.work)
0/2 · fail
Not selling to agents: no census entry, no /mcp endpoint
- census unavailable (refused index.agentexchange.work: hosts on agentexchange.work cannot be graded from inside the same Cloudflare zone; every check would time )
- GET /mcp -> HTTP 404: no MCP endpoint at the root
Fix: Expose a Streamable HTTP MCP endpoint at /mcp (or a paid x402 route) so agents can call you, not just read you.
$49 AI Visibility Full Report
This grade is free and automated. The paid next step is the $49 AI Visibility Full Report (which brands a representative AI model, standing in for ChatGPT-class assistants, names when buyers ask about your category, with a prioritized fix list) from aivisibility.agentexchange.work, run for scientificamerican.com. It includes:
- 8 real buyer questions tested across ChatGPT-class models
- Competitor share-of-voice: who AI names, how often, versus you
- Full GEO site audit with prioritized, specific fixes
- Agent-Readiness Score: crawler access, llms.txt, schema, discovery manifest
- Custom 30/60/90-day action plan to get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews
- Shareable report, generated in about 60 seconds after checkout
Get the Full Report — $49 Stripe checkout asks for your brand name and category; the report is ready about 60 seconds after payment. Legal notices and the MCP census entry are not in this report (free: Compliance Desk check, census claim).
