- Visibility16
- Citations0
- Sentiment88
- Site quality93
- AI readiness14
AI assistants name Powell's Books in 13.3% of answers, which is about twice as often as the typical company in the retail sector. Its overall score is 39 out of 100, ranking it 483rd of 2,047 companies. The Powell's Books website passes 2 of 14 technical checks for readiness for AI tools.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the retail market: none named Powell's Books. AI assistants named it in 8 of 60 answers (13.3%). The typical retail company is named in 6.7% of answers. By how often it is named, Powell's Books ranks 213 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 some good alternatives to shopping at a traditional independent bookstore for book lovers?”
Yes—book lovers have several good alternatives to a traditional independent bookstore, depending on whether they want new books, used books, ebooks, audiobooks, or a more community-based experience.
Bookshop.org is a strong choice if you want to buy new books online while still supporting independent bookstores.
IndieBound helps connect you to local bookstores for online or local fulfillment.
Libby and your local library are the best free options for borrowing ebooks and audiobooks.
Libro.fm is a popular audiobook alterna …
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
Some checks could not run. With them, up to level 1 would be possible.
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. Powell's Books 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
- MPPCould not check
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%SitemapCould not check
Serve an XML sitemap and reference it from robots.txt.
- study: 0.3%Link headersCould not check
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 negotiationCould not check
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.mdCould not check
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 23 of 100 · 70% of checks could run · checked on October 5, 2026 · www.powells.com · 2,047 companies scanned
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 checksHide them
- Passedrobots.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%
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.
- GPTBotpartly
- ClaudeBotpartly
- Anthropic-AIpartly
- Google-Extendedpartly
- Applebot-Extendedpartly
- Meta-ExternalAgentpartly
- FacebookBotpartly
- Bytespiderpartly
- CCBotpartly
- Diffbotpartly
- Omgilibotpartly
- OAI-SearchBotpartly
- Claude-SearchBotpartly
- PerplexityBotpartly
- Applebotpartly
- Amazonbotpartly
- YouBotpartly
- 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.
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.
- Is shopping at a local independent bookstore worth it compared to ordering from a big online retailer?
- How do independent bookstores support local authors and literary events?
- What options exist besides independent bookstores for supporting community-focused literature events?
- Where else can readers find out-of-print titles if a local bookshop doesn’t have them in stock?
- What are some good alternatives to shopping at a traditional independent bookstore for book lovers?
- Are used books at independent bookstores generally cheaper than new copies from other sources?
- What are the best independent bookstores in the US for rare and used books?
- Where can I find a wide selection of new and gently used books sold by independent booksellers?
- What should I do if the book I want isn’t available at my neighborhood indie bookstore?
- What price ranges can I expect for rare or collectible books at a US independent bookstore?
- What are some good reasons to shop at an independent bookstore instead of online sellers?
- How do independent bookstores compare to large chain bookstores in terms of selection and community focus?
- Should I buy books from independent bookshops when looking for unique or out-of-print titles?
- Why can it be difficult to find specific titles at independent bookstores and how can I improve my search?
- Secondhand bookstore vs online marketplace: which is better for finding collectible books?
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/powells.com"><img src="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/badges/powells.com.svg" alt="Overall score 39 of 100, US AI Visibility Study 2026" width="280" height="64"></a>