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Sally Beauty Holdings

sallybeauty.com · Retail

Ranked 802 of 2,047 companies in the study

35Overall score
  • Visibility33
  • Citations2
  • Sentiment50
  • Site quality73
  • AI readiness21
What this means for Sally Beauty Holdings

AI assistants name Sally Beauty Holdings in 33.3% of their answers, which is much more often than the typical company in the retail sector. Its overall score is 35 out of 100, ranking 802nd of 2,047 companies. The Sally Beauty Holdings website passes 3 out of 14 technical checks for AI tool readiness.

We asked 15 unbranded questions about the retail market: none named Sally Beauty Holdings. AI assistants named it in 20 of 60 answers (33.3%). The typical retail company is named in 6.7% of answers. By how often it is named, Sally Beauty Holdings ranks 67 of 640 in its sector.

Named by AI in
33.3%
20 of 60 answers
Share of mentions
31.7%
compared with 5 rivals
AI readiness
3/14
technical checks passed. Typical for its sector: 3
Rank in its sector
283 of 640
by overall score, where the typical retail company scores 34
How Sally Beauty Holdings 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
33

How often AI assistants name the company

Citations
2

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

Sentiment
50

How positively AI describes the company

Site quality
73

How well built the website's own pages are

AI readiness
21

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 score35
Ranks 283 of 640. Typical company: 34
Named in answers33%
Ranks 67 of 640. Typical company: 7%
AI readiness21
Ranks 351 of 640. Typical company: 29
What Gemini actually said

An answer that names the company

“What are alternatives to traditional beauty supply retailers for salon products in the US?”

Salons in the US have several alternatives to traditional beauty supply retailers for sourcing their professional products. These alternatives often provide wholesale pricing, a wider selection, and convenient delivery options.

Here are some of the key alternatives:

Wholesale Beauty Supply Distributors: These companies specialize in selling professional-grade beauty products directly to licensed cosmetologists and salons. They typically offer a vast inventory of top brands across various categories like hair care, skincare, nail products, and salon tools.

Major National Dis …

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

Also named
CosmoProf10SalonCentric9Beauty Plus Salon1
Share of mentions

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

Sally Beauty Holdings
34.5%
CosmoProf
25.9%
SalonCentric
25.9%
Beauty Plus Salon
8.6%
ULTA Beauty
5.2%
Armstrong McCall
0.0%
Which AI assistants named the company

Answers naming it, out of answers received

Gemini
7/15
Perplexity
6/15
Claude
4/15
OpenAI
3/15
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. Sally Beauty Holdings 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

The shop runs on Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

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 · www.sallybeauty.com · 2,047 companies scanned

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

The checks behind the AI readiness score

3 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%
  • PassedToken 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

stores.sallybeauty.com
32
justdial.com
27
stores.cosmoprofbeauty.com
18
marlobeauty.com
18
saloncentric.com
18
ulta.com
12
sallybeauty.com (its own website)
11
cosmoprofbeauty.com
10
alibaba.com
8
amazon.com
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 (10 of 15)
QuestionOpenAIClaudePerplexityGemini
  • What are alternatives to traditional beauty supply retailers for salon products in the US?
  • How can consumers find discounts on salon-quality nail kits?”
  • Why might salon-quality hair dye from a beauty supply store not deliver expected results at home?
  • What are the best beauty supply stores for professional hair care products in the US?
  • Is it better to buy bulk nail products from a beauty supply retailer or at a general supermarket?
  • How can beauty professionals source supplies for starting a small home salon?
  • Which beauty supply store products are best suited for DIY salon treatments at home?
  • How do beauty supply retailers compare to drugstores for buying professional-grade hair products?
  • What should I do if a professional hair product from a beauty supply retailer causes a scalp reaction?
  • What’s the difference between shopping at a beauty supply store versus a department store for hair color?
  • Where can consumers and stylists find a wide range of nail and salon supplies?
  • Where else can beauty professionals shop for hair and nail supplies besides specialty retailers?
  • What are the typical price ranges for professional-grade hair dryers at beauty supply stores?
  • Are professional hair styling tools from beauty supply stores worth the price for home use?
  • What options are available for eco-friendly professional beauty products outside of standard beauty supply stores?
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 35 of 100 badge for Sally Beauty Holdings

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