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City Lights Bookstore

citylights.com · Retail

Ranked 551 of 2,047 companies in the study

38Overall score
  • Visibility22
  • Citations0
  • Sentiment100
  • Site quality63
  • AI readiness14
What this means for City Lights Bookstore

AI assistants name City Lights Bookstore in 15% of answers, more often than the typical company in retail. Its overall score is 38 out of 100, ranking 551st of 2,047. The website passes 2 out of 14 technical checks for AI tool readiness.

We asked 15 unbranded questions about the retail market: none named City Lights Bookstore. AI assistants named it in 9 of 60 answers (15.0%). The typical retail company is named in 6.7% of answers. By how often it is named, City Lights Bookstore ranks 194 of 640 in its sector.

Named by AI in
15.0%
9 of 60 answers
Share of mentions
32.1%
compared with 5 rivals
AI readiness
2/14
technical checks passed. Typical for its sector: 3
Rank in its sector
184 of 640
by overall score, where the typical retail company scores 34
How City Lights Bookstore compares with all 2,047 companies

Every dot is a company in the study. Hover one to see it; click to open its report.

This companySame sectorEvery other companyNever named

What makes up the score

Five parts, each scored out of 100.

Visibility
22

How often AI assistants name the company

Citations
0

How often AI uses the company's own website as a source

Sentiment
100

How positively AI describes the company

Site quality
63

How well built the website's own pages are

AI readiness
14

How easily AI tools can read and use the website

Visibility is calculated from the answers on this page. How the score is built.

Compared with retail

640 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.

Overall score38
Ranks 184 of 640. Typical company: 34
Named in answers15%
Ranks 194 of 640. Typical company: 7%
AI readiness14
Ranks 503 of 640. Typical company: 29
What Claude actually said

An answer that names the company

“Best independent bookstores in the US for world literature and poetry selection”

I'll search for the best independent bookstores in the US known for their world literature and poetry selections.Based on the search results, here are some of the best independent bookstores in the US for world literature and poetry selections:

Top Recommendations

City Lights (San Francisco, CA)

City Lights specializes in world literature, the arts and anti-authoritarian politics, and has been known as a literary meeting place since 1953. It maintains an irresistible indie charm, selling curated and progressive collections with an emphasis on small presses and poetry.

Prairie Light …

The AI’s answer as we received it, shortened and not checked for accuracy.

Also named
Powell's Books2Green Apple Books2
Share of mentions

How the mentions in these answers were split between this company and its rivals

City Lights Bookstore
39.1%
Powell's Books
34.8%
The Strand Bookstore
8.7%
Green Apple Books
8.7%
Left Bank Books
8.7%
BookWoman
0.0%
Which AI assistants named the company

Answers naming it, out of answers received

Gemini
3/15
Perplexity
3/15
OpenAI
2/15
Claude
1/15
Ready for AI agents

What this website publishes for an AI agent to read, use and buy from, on a scale of six levels.

  1. 0
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5

Level 1: Basic web presence. Two of robots.txt, a sitemap and Link headers are in place.

To reach level 2:
  • Content Signals
Can an AI agent buy here?

Not by itself. City Lights Bookstore 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 team
Discoverability
77 of 100
  • robots.txtPassed

    A valid robots.txt with crawl rules at the site root.

    study: 92.0%
  • SitemapPassed

    An XML sitemap listing the pages, ideally referenced from robots.txt.

    study: 86.8%
  • Link headersNot met

    Send Link headers such as rel="api-catalog" or rel="describedby" on the homepage.

    study: 0.3%
  • DNS for AI DiscoveryNot present

    Advertise agent endpoints with SVCB records under _agents.

    study: 5.5%
Content accessibility
0 of 100
  • Markdown negotiationNot met

    Return a markdown version when asked with Accept: text/markdown, for example at the CDN.

    study: 1.9%
  • llms.txtNot met

    Publish an llms.txt with a short summary and the key links.

    study: 25.1%
Bot access control
32 of 100
  • AI bot rulesPartly met

    Add explicit robots.txt groups for the main AI crawlers.

    study: 93.4%
  • Content SignalsNot met

    Add a Content-Signal line for search, ai-input and ai-train to robots.txt.

    study: 1.4%
  • Web Bot AuthNot present

    Only relevant if you run your own agents or crawlers: publish a signing key directory.

    study: 0.2%
APIs, auth and MCP
0 of 100
  • API CatalogNot met

    List public APIs in a linkset at /.well-known/api-catalog.

    study: 0.3%
  • OAuth discoveryNot met

    Publish OpenID Connect or OAuth server metadata under /.well-known.

    study: 11.8%
  • OAuth Protected ResourceNot met

    Serve protected resource metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.

    study: 10.3%
  • auth.mdNot met

    Publish an auth.md describing how agents sign in.

    study: 0.0%
  • MCP Server CardNot met

    Offer an MCP server and publish its server card under /.well-known.

    study: 0.2%
  • A2A Agent CardNot met

    Publish an agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json.

    study: 0.1%
  • Agent SkillsNot met

    Publish a skills index with the main tasks agents can do.

    study: 0.2%
  • WebMCPCould not check

    Register key actions such as search or cart as WebMCP tools.

    study: 33.7%
  • ARD manifestNot met

    Publish an ai-catalog.json listing every agent interface.

    study: 0.1%

Score 25 of 100 · 97% of checks could run · checked on October 5, 2026 · citylights.com · 2,047 companies scanned

See how every company did, and how this was measured.

The checks behind the AI readiness score

2 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 checks
Discoverability
  • Passedrobots.txt publishedstudy: 85.0%
  • PassedXML sitemapstudy: 73.2%
  • Not metHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
Content Accessibility
  • Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
  • Not metllms.txt publishedstudy: 21.7%
  • Not metToken budget (page weight)study: 95.2%
Bot Access Control
  • Not metExplicit AI bot rulesstudy: 13.0%
API / Auth / MCP
  • 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%
What AI crawlers may read (robots.txt)

This website sets no rules for any AI crawler by name, like 84% of the websites whose rules we could read. Every AI crawler follows its general rules.

Training AI
  • GPTBotpartly
  • ClaudeBotpartly
  • Anthropic-AIpartly
  • Google-Extendedpartly
  • Applebot-Extendedpartly
  • Meta-ExternalAgentpartly
  • FacebookBotpartly
  • Bytespiderpartly
  • CCBotpartly
  • Diffbotpartly
  • Omgilibotpartly
AI search
  • OAI-SearchBotpartly
  • Claude-SearchBotpartly
  • PerplexityBotpartly
  • Applebotpartly
  • Amazonbotpartly
  • YouBotpartly
Answering questions
  • ChatGPT-Userpartly
  • Claude-Userpartly
  • Perplexity-Userpartly
  • DuckAssistBotpartly
  • MistralAI-Userpartly

Read from the website’s own rules file (robots.txt). An asterisk marks a crawler the file names. The rest follow its general rules. “Partly” means only some pages are blocked.

Websites the AI used as sources

How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers

bookriot.com
12
biblio.com
11
electricliterature.com
9
lithub.com
9
timeout.com
8
reddit.com
7
bookshop.org
7
newpages.com
7
en.wikipedia.org
6
poetryfoundation.org
6

In the study as US retailers: listed as a retailer in Wikidata, a public database, and among the websites Cloudflare Radar ranks as visited.

Every question, and where the company came up (5 of 15)
QuestionOpenAIClaudePerplexityGemini
  • Typical price range for literary classics from small publishers in the US
  • Best independent bookstores in the US for world literature and poetry selection
  • How can I support emerging poets through my book purchases?
  • Are poetry collections more expensive at independent bookstores than national chains?
  • Where else can I buy independently published progressive political books in the US?
  • Where can readers attend author events focused on progressive political discussion?
  • Where can I find progressive political books at local bookshops?
  • What if the poetry book I want isn't available at my local independent shop?
  • Independent bookstore vs chain bookstore for curated reading recommendations
  • What are good substitutes for an in-person poetry browsing experience?
  • Does shopping at independent bookstores offer better value for hard-to-find political works?
  • How to locate rare translated novels in US independent bookstores
  • Is it worth paying extra to support small publishers specializing in global literature?
  • Online bookstores vs brick-and-mortar shops for discovering new poetry collections
  • Alternatives to physical bookstores for discovering new world literature titles
named the companyanswered without naming itdid not answer

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.

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Overall score 38 of 100 badge for City Lights Bookstore

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