- Visibility7
- Citations0
- Sentiment100
- Site quality80
- AI readiness29
AI assistants rarely name Core & Main in their answers, mentioning it in 2 of 60 responses and sometimes also naming Ferguson Waterworks. This is less often than the typical company in the Industrial sector. Its overall score is 38 out of 100, ranking 599th of 2,047 companies. The website passes 4 out of 14 technical checks for AI tool readiness.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the industrial market: none named Core & Main. AI assistants named it in 2 of 60 answers (3.3%). The typical industrial company is named in 5.0% of answers. By how often it is named, Core & Main ranks 138 of 246 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.
246 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.
An answer that names the company
“What are the best suppliers for municipal water and wastewater infrastructure products in the US?”
When seeking suppliers for municipal water and wastewater infrastructure products in the U.S., several key companies stand out for their comprehensive offerings and national reach. These suppliers provide a wide range of products and services, from pipes and valves to advanced treatment technologies and smart metering solutions.
Some of the best suppliers in this sector include:
Core & Main: This company is a leading specialized distributor of water, wastewater, storm drainage, and fire protection products and related services across the United States and Canada. They offer solutions …
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 1: Basic web presence. Two of robots.txt, a sitemap and Link headers are in place.
- Content Signals
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%SitemapPassed
An XML sitemap listing the pages, ideally referenced 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%WebMCPCould not check
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 25 of 100 · 97% of checks could run · checked on October 5, 2026 · coreandmain.com · 2,047 companies scanned
4 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
- Passedrobots.txt publishedstudy: 85.0%
- PassedXML sitemapstudy: 73.2%
- PassedHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
- Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
- Not metllms.txt publishedstudy: 21.7%
- PassedToken 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%
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.
- GPTBotallowed
- ClaudeBotallowed
- Anthropic-AIallowed
- Google-Extendedallowed
- Applebot-Extendedallowed
- Meta-ExternalAgentallowed
- FacebookBotallowed
- Bytespiderallowed
- CCBotallowed
- Diffbotallowed
- Omgilibotallowed
- OAI-SearchBotallowed
- Claude-SearchBotallowed
- PerplexityBotallowed
- Applebotallowed
- Amazonbotallowed
- YouBotallowed
- ChatGPT-Userallowed
- Claude-Userallowed
- Perplexity-Userallowed
- DuckAssistBotallowed
- MistralAI-Userallowed
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.
How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers
In the study as US-listed.
- Selecting appropriate storm drainage solutions for flood-prone areas
- What are the best suppliers for municipal water and wastewater infrastructure products in the US?
- Alternatives to traditional gravity-fed wastewater systems for rural communities
- Substitutes for precast concrete drainage structures in municipal projects
- How do costs compare between galvanized steel and HDPE piping for storm drainage?
- Water meter technologies: ultrasonic vs. mechanical for utility upgrades
- Top-rated storm drainage solutions for cities and utilities
- Common issues with fire hydrant installations and how to resolve them
- Is it worth investing in pre-assembled valve packages for large municipal projects?
- Pipe material options for fire protection systems: ductile iron vs. PVC vs. steel
- How to evaluate the quality of stormwater management products for public works projects
- What can cause frequent leaks in water distribution mains and how do you fix them?
- Typical price range for bulk water and sewer pipe supply in the US
- Best products for upgrading aging wastewater systems in small towns
- What are the best non-metallic options for fire protection piping?
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.