- Visibility24
- Citations1
- Sentiment82
- Site quality33
- AI readiness7
AI assistants name Fastenal in 18.3% of answers, which is more often than the typical company in its sector at 6.7%. Its overall score is 29 out of 100, ranking 1,294th of 2,047 companies. The website passes 1 of 14 technical checks for AI tool readiness.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the retail market: none named Fastenal. AI assistants named it in 11 of 60 answers (18.3%). The typical retail company is named in 6.7% of answers. By how often it is named, Fastenal ranks 153 of 640 in its sector.
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.
An answer that names the company
“What are the best industrial supply distributors for construction businesses in the US?”
For construction businesses in the U.S., a variety of industrial supply distributors cater to different needs, ranging from heavy machinery to specialized building materials and safety equipment. Here are some of the top distributors and manufacturers to consider:
General Industrial and Construction Suppliers:
W.W. Grainger: Ranked as a top industrial distributor, Grainger offers a vast array of products.
Fastenal: A major player in construction material supplies, particularly strong in industrial and fastener needs.
HD Supply: This company was acquired by The H …
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. Fastenal 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.txtCould not check
Publish a valid robots.txt with crawl rules and a Sitemap line.
- 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 rulesCould not check
Add explicit robots.txt groups for the main AI crawlers.
- study: 1.4%Content SignalsCould not check
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 0 of 100 · 67% of checks could run · checked on October 5, 2026 · www.fastenal.com · 2,047 companies scanned
1 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%
- 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%
How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers
In the study as S&P 500.
- What are the best industrial supply distributors for construction businesses in the US?
- What’s the difference between ordering industrial supplies from a niche distributor versus a broad-line supplier?
- What are typical use-cases for procurement analytics offered by industrial supply distributors?
- Is it worth buying safety equipment from a national industrial supply distributor for a mid-size construction company?
- What are some options for businesses looking for cheaper janitorial supplies outside of mainstream distributors?
- What are the alternatives to sourcing MRO products through large distributors?
- What should I do if an MRO supply order arrives incomplete or damaged from a supplier?
- What is the average price range for industrial safety gear through US-based supply distributors?
- How can businesses resolve delayed shipments of fasteners and construction essentials from distributors?
- Which companies offer a wide selection of OEM fasteners and safety products for large facilities?
- Do industrial distributors offer better pricing for bulk orders of maintenance and repair supplies?
- How do pricing tiers work for businesses buying material handling equipment in bulk from industrial suppliers?
- How do industrial supply distributors compare to local hardware stores for sourcing MRO products?
- Where else can construction companies obtain OEM fasteners besides traditional industrial supply channels?
- How do industrial distributors support custom orders when standard fastener sizes aren’t available?
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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<a href="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/fastenal.com"><img src="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/badges/fastenal.com.svg" alt="Overall score 29 of 100, US AI Visibility Study 2026" width="280" height="64"></a>