This is a static-scan check (robots.txt + llms.txt + schema.org + headers). Live engine probes across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity arrive in a future build — currently in queue. Real visibility lives in category and comparison queries, which we measure with a 100-prompt stratified set on the Audit tier.
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AI crawler robots.txt audit
§1 of 4Every search-index crawler we track (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, GoogleOther) is disallowed by cnn.com's robots.txt. If this is intentional (regulated industry, deliberate opt-out), no action needed. If the expectation is that AI engines should cite it, this is the root cause: AI engines retrieve via these crawlers at inference time.
No Content Signals in robots.txt. — Content Signals (IETF draft, contentsignals.org) are a declarative way to state AI-usage preferences: `Content-Signal: search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=no`. Compliance is voluntary today, but the signals are cheap to publish and align with the direction the standards are heading.
| GPTBot | Training crawler for future OpenAI models. | ✗ Disallowed |
| OAI-SearchBot | ChatGPT Search index. Disallowing makes you invisible to ChatGPT Search. | ✗ Disallowed |
| ChatGPT-User | User-initiated retrieval. Ignores robots.txt by design. | — Ignores robots.txt |
| ClaudeBot | Training crawler for Anthropic models. | ✗ Disallowed |
| Claude-User | Retrieves pages when a Claude user asks about them. Respects robots.txt (unlike OpenAI's ChatGPT-User). | ✗ Disallowed |
| Claude-SearchBot | Search index for Claude. Disallowing reduces Claude search quality. | ✗ Disallowed |
| claude-code | Claude Code CLI / IDE retrieval. Documentation-targeted. | ✓ Allowed |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity indexing. Disallowing removes you from Perplexity retrieval. | ✗ Disallowed |
| Perplexity-User | User-initiated retrieval. Ignores robots.txt by design. | — Ignores robots.txt |
| Google-Extended | Training opt-out for Gemini / Bard. Disallowing opts you out of Google AI training. | ✗ Disallowed |
| GoogleOther | Catch-all for non-Search Google crawlers. | ✗ Disallowed |
| Meta-ExternalAgent | Meta AI crawler. Disallowing opts you out of Meta AI training/retrieval. | ✓ Allowed |
| Applebot-Extended | Apple Intelligence training opt-out (separate from Applebot Search). | ✗ Disallowed |
| Bytespider | ByteDance / TikTok AI crawler. | ✗ Disallowed |
| CCBot | Common Crawl. Heavily used as a training-corpus source by every major model. | ✗ Disallowed |
Structured data & discovery files
§2 of 4| Artifact | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| llms.txtA markdown index of the site's most important pages, served at /llms.txt. Anthropic Claude Desktop and Claude.ai fetch this. IDE tooling (Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cline, Aider) routinely retrieves it. Google has explicitly confirmed it does NOT support it (Gary Illyes, July 2025). OpenAI is unconfirmed. | ✗ Missing | Anthropic Claude respects this; Google has confirmed it does not; OpenAI is unconfirmed. |
| llms-full.txtOptional full-content companion to llms.txt. Useful for agents with large context windows that prefer a single fetch over crawling. Doesn't replace llms.txt — both can coexist. | ✗ Missing | Optional full-content companion file. |
| Artifact | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| schema.org OrganizationThe brand-identity anchor LLMs use to disambiguate the site. Without it, profile links on LinkedIn, Wikidata, Crunchbase, GitHub etc. aren't bound to the homepage's entity in the AI's knowledge graph. The sameAs array is the load-bearing field. | ✗ Missing | Entity anchor for the sameAs graph. |
| schema.org FAQPagePages with FAQPage JSON-LD show 2.7× citation rate vs without — 41% vs 15% in the Relixir 2025 study. The JSON-LD must mirror visible Q&A content on the page; Google penalises mismatch. Single highest-leverage fix in the audit. | ✗ Missing | 2.7× citation rate vs without (Relixir 2025) — highest-leverage single fix. |
| schema.org ArticleFor journalistic/editorial pages. Declares author, datePublished, dateModified, and section to AI engines. They preferentially cite recent, dated, authored content in answer-engine results. | ✗ Missing | For editorial pages. |
| schema.org HowToFor step-by-step procedural content. AI engines preferentially cite HowTo markup when answering procedural queries ("how do I X"). Maps directly to retrieval intent. | ✗ Missing | For tutorials. |
| schema.org SoftwareApplicationFor product/app pages. Maps to vendor-evaluation queries ("best X for Y"). Effectively required for B2B SaaS visibility in AI citations — 89% of B2B buyers now use AI for vendor research (Averi 2026). | ✗ Missing | For product pages. |
| Person (author entity)Author entity on bylines, linked to the Article entity. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signal — AI engines weight content authored by named, credentialed people higher than anonymous content. | ✗ Missing | E-E-A-T signal on bylines. |
HTTP headers
§3 of 4| Header | Value |
|---|---|
| X-Robots-TagPage-level crawler directives. The proposed `noai` / `noimageai` values request AI crawlers skip the page (publisher hint — honored by some, ignored by others). Not enforced; combine with explicit robots.txt rules for layered defense. | — not set |
| Cache-ControlTells crawlers how aggressively to cache the response. Aggressive `no-store` or `private no-cache` directives hurt retrieval freshness signaling — AI engines may distrust the page or refresh it less often. For public pages, prefer `public, max-age=300` or longer. | max-age=60 |
| Link: canonicalCanonical URL declared as an HTTP response header (RFC 8288 + RFC 6596). Processed earlier in the retrieval pipeline than the HTML `<link rel="canonical">` tag, so it works for crawlers that don't fully render HTML. | — not set |
| Content-TypeDeclares the response format. `text/html; charset=utf-8` is the standard for pages. If the site supports Markdown negotiation, the same URL can serve `text/markdown` when `Accept: text/markdown` is sent. | text/html; charset=utf-8 |
| Agent-content probe | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Markdown negotiationEmerging Cloudflare-led standard. When an agent sends Accept: text/markdown, the site returns a markdown rendering of the page instead of HTML. Sibling of llms.txt. Reduces token cost for downstream AI usage and lets agents consume the site without rendering. | ✗ Returns HTML | No text/markdown response when Accept: text/markdown is sent. |
| Agent-discovery Link relsRFC 8288 Link-header relations that let agents find machine-readable surfaces of the site without scraping HTML. We look for api-catalog (RFC 9727), service-desc (OpenAPI), describedby (RDF / JSON-LD), and agent-card (emerging convention). | ✗ None | No api-catalog / service-desc / describedby / agent-card rels. |
Top findings
§4 of 4- 1High
All AI search-index crawlers are disallowed.
Every search-index crawler we track (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, GoogleOther) is disallowed by cnn.com's robots.txt. If this is intentional (regulated industry, deliberate opt-out), no action needed. If the expectation is that AI engines should cite it, this is the root cause: AI engines retrieve via these crawlers at inference time.
- 2High
No schema.org Organization on the homepage.
Organization is the entity anchor LLMs use to disambiguate your brand. Without it, the sameAs graph (Wikidata, LinkedIn, Crunchbase) has no central node.
- 3High
No FAQPage schema — highest-leverage single fix.
Pages with FAQPage JSON-LD show 2.7× citation rate vs without (Relixir 2025: 41% vs 15%). Add it to your top-converting pages — the JSON-LD must reflect actual visible Q&A content.
- 4Med
No llms.txt found.
Anthropic Claude Desktop and Claude.ai respect llms.txt; IDE tooling (Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cline, Aider) routinely fetches it. Google has confirmed it does NOT support llms.txt; OpenAI is unconfirmed. Ship one if you want Anthropic + dev-tool visibility — do NOT expect it to move ChatGPT or Gemini.
- 5Tip
No Content Signals in robots.txt.
Content Signals (IETF draft, contentsignals.org) are a declarative way to state AI-usage preferences: `Content-Signal: search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=no`. Compliance is voluntary today, but the signals are cheap to publish and align with the direction the standards are heading.
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