- Visibility0
- Citations0
- Sentiment50
- Site quality80
- AI readiness0
AI assistants do not name Book Soup in any of their 60 answers, while they sometimes mention Powell's Books and Skylight Books instead. Book Soup's overall score is 23 out of 100, ranking 1,944th of 2,047 companies. Its website passes 0 out of 14 technical checks for AI tool readiness.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the retail market: none named Book Soup. AI assistants named it in none of 60 answers. The typical retail company is named in 6.7% of answers. By how often it is named, Book Soup ranks 503 of 640 in its sector.
Named fewer than three times in total. Read this as a sign that AI assistants rarely bring this company up, not as an exact comparison with its rivals.
Every dot is a company in the study. Hover one to see it; click to open its report.
This companySame sectorEvery other companyNever named
Five parts, each scored out of 100.
How often AI assistants name the company
How often AI uses the company's own website as a source
How positively AI describes the company
How well built the website's own pages are
How easily AI tools can read and use the website
Visibility is calculated from the answers on this page. How the score is built.
640 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.
The company is not named in this answer
“Where can I browse new releases from lesser-known authors in person?”
To browse new releases from lesser-known authors in person, consider visiting independent bookstores and attending book festivals or literary events. These venues often champion emerging voices and offer a more curated selection than larger chain stores.
Independent Bookstores:
Many independent bookstores make an effort to stock and promote books from local, self-published, and small-press authors. They often have dedicated sections for these titles or feature them prominently. Some examples of bookstores known for supporting independent or local authors include:
Powell's Books i …
The AI’s answer as we received it, shortened and not checked for accuracy.
How the mentions in these answers were split between this company and its rivals
Answers naming it, out of answers received
What this website publishes for an AI agent to read, use and buy from, on a scale of six levels.
- 0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Level 0: Not yet agent-ready. Agents struggle to find basic information about the site.
- 2 of robots.txt, Sitemap, Link headers
The website turns away requests that do not come from a browser. AI agents that say what they are meet the same refusal.
Not by itself. Book Soup publishes none of the purchase protocols we look for. An agent would have to click through the checkout like a person.
- UCPNot present
- ACPNot present
- AP2Not present
- x402Not present
- MPPNot present
Show every check, for your technical teamHide the checks
- study: 92.0%robots.txtPassed
A valid robots.txt with crawl rules at the site root.
- study: 86.8%SitemapNot met
Serve an XML sitemap and reference it from robots.txt.
- study: 0.3%Link headersNot met
Send Link headers such as rel="api-catalog" or rel="describedby" on the homepage.
- study: 5.5%DNS for AI DiscoveryNot present
Advertise agent endpoints with SVCB records under _agents.
- study: 1.9%Markdown negotiationNot met
Return a markdown version when asked with Accept: text/markdown, for example at the CDN.
- study: 25.1%llms.txtNot met
Publish an llms.txt with a short summary and the key links.
- study: 93.4%AI bot rulesPartly met
Add explicit robots.txt groups for the main AI crawlers.
- study: 1.4%Content SignalsNot met
Add a Content-Signal line for search, ai-input and ai-train to robots.txt.
- study: 0.2%Web Bot AuthNot present
Only relevant if you run your own agents or crawlers: publish a signing key directory.
- study: 0.3%API CatalogNot met
List public APIs in a linkset at /.well-known/api-catalog.
- study: 11.8%OAuth discoveryNot met
Publish OpenID Connect or OAuth server metadata under /.well-known.
- study: 10.3%OAuth Protected ResourceNot met
Serve protected resource metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.
- study: 0.0%auth.mdNot met
Publish an auth.md describing how agents sign in.
- study: 0.2%MCP Server CardNot met
Offer an MCP server and publish its server card under /.well-known.
- study: 0.1%A2A Agent CardNot met
Publish an agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json.
- study: 0.2%Agent SkillsNot met
Publish a skills index with the main tasks agents can do.
- study: 33.7%WebMCPNot met
Register key actions such as search or cart as WebMCP tools.
- study: 0.1%ARD manifestNot met
Publish an ai-catalog.json listing every agent interface.
Score 16 of 100 · 100% of checks could run · checked on October 3, 2026 · booksoup.com · 2,047 companies scanned
0 of 14 passed. This list is for your technical team. The percentage is how many companies in the study pass each check.
These 14 checks ran during the audit and are what the AI readiness part of the overall score counts. The scan above ran later and is stricter on Link headers and Markdown, so a check can pass here and not there.
Show the 14 checksHide them
- Not metrobots.txt publishedstudy: 85.0%
- Not metXML sitemapstudy: 73.2%
- Not metHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
- Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
- Not metllms.txt publishedstudy: 21.7%
- Not metToken budget (page weight)study: 95.2%
- Not metExplicit AI bot rulesstudy: 13.0%
- Not metAPI Catalog (.well-known/api-catalog)study: 0.2%
- Not metOAuth Authorization Server discoverystudy: 10.1%
- Not metOAuth Protected Resource discoverystudy: 9.3%
- Not metMCP Server Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metA2A Agent Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metWebMCP toolsstudy: 4.2%
- Not metAgent Skills declaredstudy: 0.0%
How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers
In the study as US retailers: listed as a retailer in Wikidata, a public database, and among the websites Cloudflare Radar ranks as visited.
- Are curated book selections at independent stores more tailored than online algorithms?
- Do indie bookstores offer advantages for people looking for rare or signed editions?
- Where can I browse new releases from lesser-known authors in person?
- Used bookstores versus independent new bookstores: which is better for collectors?
- Top places to find curated selections of contemporary fiction and nonfiction
- Best independent bookstores for discovering unique literary titles in the US
- Where can I get personalized book recommendations in-store?
- Alternatives to shopping in-person at an indie bookstore for unique literary finds
- Independent bookstores vs national bookstore chains: what's different about the experience?
- What to do if a specific book isn’t available at your local independent bookstore
- How do prices at small independent bookstores compare to online book retailers?
- Best places for book lovers to attend author events or literary talks
- Online book retailers versus local indie bookstores for literary enthusiasts
- Are there membership or loyalty programs at independent bookstores for frequent buyers?
- Is shopping at an independent bookstore worth the price for book lovers?
Columns, left to right: OpenAI, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. The AI assistants often disagree. Across the study, on 40% of the questions where a company is named, only one of the four names it.