- Visibility14
- Citations0
- Sentiment50
- Site quality50
- AI readiness36
AI assistants name USA Today in 13.3% of answers, which is a little less often than the typical company in its sector, named in 15%. USA Today has an overall score of 26 out of 100, ranking 1,633rd of 2,047 companies. Its website passes 5 of 14 technical checks for readiness for AI tools.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the media market: none named USA Today. AI assistants named it in 8 of 60 answers (13.3%). The typical media company is named in 15.0% of answers. By how often it is named, USA Today ranks 51 of 99 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.
99 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.
An answer that names the company
“What are some alternatives to using digital news sites for keeping up with current events in the U.S.?”
Do you mean avoiding web-based news sites specifically (e.g., news websites and apps) or avoiding the internet/digital sources entirely? I can tailor suggestions either way. Meanwhile, here are practical alternatives for keeping up with U.S. current events that aren’t primarily news websites:
1. Print newspapers and magazines
National papers: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post (print editions).
Weeklies/monthlies: Time, The Atlantic, The New Yorker (for deeper analysis).
Pros: curated, fewer click-driven headlines; good for longform and context. …
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 · www.usatoday.com · 2,047 companies scanned
5 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%
- PassedExplicit 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 rules for 22 AI crawlers by name. All others follow its general rules.
- GPTBot*partly
- ClaudeBot*blocked
- Anthropic-AI*blocked
- Google-Extended*partly
- Applebot-Extended*blocked
- Meta-ExternalAgent*blocked
- FacebookBot*blocked
- Bytespider*blocked
- CCBot*blocked
- Diffbot*blocked
- Omgilibot*blocked
- OAI-SearchBot*partly
- Claude-SearchBot*blocked
- PerplexityBot*partly
- Applebot*blocked
- Amazonbot*blocked
- YouBot*blocked
- ChatGPT-User*partly
- Claude-User*blocked
- Perplexity-User*blocked
- DuckAssistBot*blocked
- MistralAI-User*blocked
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 Consumer brands.
- Do paid online news sites offer better content than free news platforms?
- How do digital news publishers differ from traditional print newspapers in terms of news coverage?
- What are some alternatives to using digital news sites for keeping up with current events in the U.S.?
- Why am I seeing paywalls when trying to read digital news articles?
- Typical monthly subscription prices for ad-free national news websites in the U.S.
- How can I manage excessive notifications from national news websites on my phone?
- Online news outlets vs cable news channels: Which is better for staying informed in the U.S.?
- What’s the best way to follow live election coverage online in the U.S.?
- Are there discounts for students on American online news subscriptions?
- How can I access real-time local weather alerts from digital news publishers?
- Best websites for breaking news about sports and entertainment in the United States
- Where can I find up-to-date national news online for U.S. readers?
- Is a digital news subscription worth the cost for daily national news updates?
- Top sources for U.S. finance and technology news delivered online
- Best ways to get breaking news updates without visiting news websites
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/usatoday.com"><img src="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/badges/usatoday.com.svg" alt="Overall score 26 of 100, US AI Visibility Study 2026" width="280" height="64"></a>