- Visibility55
- Citations5
- Sentiment69
- Site quality80
- AI readiness29
AI assistants name Sephora in 63.3% of their answers, far more often than the typical company in the retail sector at 6.7%. Its overall score is 48 out of 100, ranking 29th of 2,047 in the study. The Sephora website passes 4 out of 14 technical checks of how ready it is for AI tools.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the retail market: none named Sephora. AI assistants named it in 38 of 60 answers (63.3%). The typical retail company is named in 6.7% of answers. By how often it is named, Sephora ranks 8 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 affordable options for buying trending fragrance brands online?”
I'll search for information about affordable options for purchasing trending fragrance brands online.Here are some affordable options for buying trending fragrance brands online:
Discount Fragrance Retailers
FragranceX offers prices up to 80% off, and Gift Express carries renowned designer brands like Versace, Calvin Klein, Gucci, and Dolce & Gabbana with discounts of up to 70%. FragranceX also offers free shipping and a rewards program for extra discounts.
Fragrance Outlet is one of the nation's largest retailers with over 100 stores of genuine designer fragrances including Calvin Klein …
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
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. Sephora 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.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.txtPassed
An llms.txt that tells language models what the site offers.
- 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 36 of 100 · 97% of checks could run · checked on October 5, 2026 · www.sephora.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%
- Not metHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
- Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
- Passedllms.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 NRF Top 100 retailers. Number 52 on the NRF Top 100 Retailers 2026 list, ranked by US retail sales.
- What are some affordable options for buying trending fragrance brands online?
- Why am I having trouble redeeming beauty rewards points for discounts online?
- How do multi-brand beauty retailers compare to department store beauty counters?
- Are beauty retailer value sets actually a good deal compared to buying items individually?
- Where can I find the latest beauty brand launches and exclusive products online?
- Where else can I find mini sizes and travel sets of popular skincare products?
- Is it better to shop for cosmetics at specialty beauty stores or big-box retailers?
- Are there good alternatives to shopping at national chain beauty retailers for premium makeup?
- What’s the typical price range for professional haircare products at specialty beauty stores?
- How can I resolve issues with missing samples in my beauty order?
- How can I discover makeup products that match my skin tone when buying online?
- Is buying high-end skincare from a dedicated beauty retailer worth the extra cost?
- What is the best way to shop for cruelty-free and vegan beauty brands in-store?
- What are the best places to shop for premium makeup and skincare in the US?
- Should I sign up for loyalty programs when shopping at beauty and cosmetics retailers?
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/sephora.com"><img src="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/badges/sephora.com.svg" alt="Overall score 48 of 100, US AI Visibility Study 2026" width="280" height="64"></a>