# AI readiness of apnews.com > Measured on the home page. Overall grade: Poor. Score 45/100, grade Poor. Measured 2026-09-04T15:06:22.788+00:00, engine ax-audit@3.6.0. ## Checks ### LLMs.txt — 0/100 - **FAIL** /llms.txt not found HTTP 404 Create a /llms.txt file at your site root following the llmstxt.org specification. It should be a Markdown file starting with "# Your Site Name" and include a description, sections, and links. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/llms-txt#not-found ### Robots.txt — 53/100 - **PASS** /robots.txt exists - **WARN** 5/8 core AI crawlers configured Missing: ChatGPT-User, Google-Extended, OAI-SearchBot Add explicit User-agent entries for the missing crawlers with Allow: / for each one. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/robots-txt#missing-crawlers - **WARN** 12 AI crawler(s) explicitly blocked CCBot, GPTBot, anthropic-ai, ClaudeBot, Claude-Web, cohere-ai, PerplexityBot, Amazonbot, Applebot-Extended, Timpibot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot These crawlers have "Disallow: /" rules. If you want AI agents to access your site, change to "Allow: /" for each blocked crawler. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/robots-txt#explicitly-blocked - **PASS** Sitemap directive present - **WARN** No Content-Signal directive found (optional) Declare how crawlers may use your content after access with the Content Signals Policy, e.g.: Content-Signal: search=yes, ai-train=no. Known signals: search, ai-input, ai-train. Generate yours at contentsignals.org. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/robots-txt#missing-content-signals - **PASS** 12/48 known AI crawlers have explicit rules ### Agent Card (A2A) — 0/100 - **FAIL** /.well-known/agent.json not found HTTP 404 Create a /.well-known/agent.json file following the A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocol. It should include name, description, url, and skills fields describing your site's capabilities. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/agent-json#not-found ### Security.txt — 0/100 - **FAIL** /.well-known/security.txt not found HTTP 404 Create a /.well-known/security.txt file per RFC 9116. At minimum, include Contact: and Expires: fields. See https://securitytxt.org/ for a generator. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/security-txt#not-found ### Meta Tags — 52/100 - **WARN** No AI meta tags (ai:*) found Add AI meta tags to your HTML : , , . https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/meta-tags#no-ai-meta - **WARN** No rel="alternate" link to llms.txt in HTML Add to your : https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/meta-tags#no-llms-alternate - **WARN** No rel="alternate" link to agent.json in HTML Add to your : https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/meta-tags#no-agent-alternate - **WARN** No rel="me" identity links found Add rel="me" links to verify your identity across platforms: , . https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/meta-tags#no-rel-me - **PASS** OpenGraph required tags present (og:title, og:description, og:url, og:type) - **PASS** Twitter Card required tags present (twitter:card, twitter:title, twitter:description) - **WARN** Twitter Card recommended tags missing: twitter:image Add twitter:image for richer previews. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/meta-tags#twitter-recommended-missing ### OpenAPI Spec — 0/100 - **FAIL** /.well-known/openapi.json not found HTTP 404 Create a /.well-known/openapi.json file with your API specification following the OpenAPI 3.x standard. See https://swagger.io/specification/ for the spec. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/openapi#not-found ### MCP (Model Context Protocol) — 0/100 - **FAIL** /.well-known/mcp.json not found HTTP 404 Create a /.well-known/mcp.json file describing your MCP server configuration. Include name, description, tools, and version fields. See https://modelcontextprotocol.io for the spec. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/mcp#not-found ### Sitemap — 95/100 - **PASS** Sitemap located: https://apnews.com/ap-sitemap.xml - **PASS** Content-Type is XML (text/xml) - **PASS** Sitemap-index references 230 child sitemap(s) - **PASS** 3/3 sample child sitemap(s) reachable - **PASS** Sample yielded 3 URL(s) across 3 child(ren) - **WARN** Newest is 569 days old Refresh on URLs that have changed. A stale sitemap signals to crawlers that nothing on the site has updated. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/sitemap#stale ### TLS / HTTPS — 97/100 - **PASS** Site is served over HTTPS - **PASS** HTTP requests redirect to HTTPS - **PASS** HSTS max-age=31536000 - **PASS** HSTS includes subdomains - **WARN** HSTS lacks the preload directive Add preload (and ensure max-age >= 31536000 + includeSubDomains) and submit the domain at https://hstspreload.org for browser-built-in HTTPS enforcement. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/tls-https#hsts-no-preload ### AI Well-Known — 0/100 - **WARN** 0/5 emerging AI discovery files published - **WARN** ai.txt not found Tried: /.well-known/ai.txt Publish /.well-known/ai.txt declaring opt-in/opt-out signals for AI training. See https://site.spawning.ai/spawning-ai-txt for the format. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/well-known-ai#ai-txt - **WARN** genai.txt not found Tried: /.well-known/genai.txt Publish /.well-known/genai.txt declaring your generative-AI usage policy. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/well-known-ai#genai-txt - **WARN** ai-plugin.json not found Tried: /.well-known/ai-plugin.json, /ai-plugin.json Publish /ai-plugin.json (legacy ChatGPT plugin manifest). Schema: name_for_model, description_for_model, api.url. Still consumed by some agents. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/well-known-ai#ai-plugin - **WARN** agents.json not found Tried: /agents.json, /.well-known/agents.json Publish /agents.json describing your site as a callable agent (OpenAgents / Wildcard emerging spec). Includes name, description, and operations[]. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/well-known-ai#agents-json - **WARN** nlweb.json not found Tried: /.well-known/nlweb.json, /nlweb.json Publish /.well-known/nlweb.json (Microsoft NLWeb) so agents can interact with the site through a natural-language interface. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/well-known-ai#nlweb ### Content Negotiation — 0/100 (reports, does not score) - **FAIL** Homepage does not serve Markdown via content negotiation Got text/html (HTTP 200) for "Accept: text/markdown" Serve a Markdown representation of your pages when agents request "Accept: text/markdown". Agents like Claude Code and Cursor ask for it, and Markdown cuts token usage by ~80% vs HTML. Cloudflare ("Markdown for Agents") and Vercel can enable this without code changes. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/content-negotiation#not-supported - **WARN** No fallback found on the homepage If you cannot enable content negotiation, advertise a Markdown version with so agents can discover it. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/content-negotiation#no-alternate ### RSL License — 0/100 (reports, does not score) - **FAIL** No RSL license discovery found Checked robots.txt License directive, Link header, and Declare machine-readable licensing terms for your content with Really Simple Licensing. Add to robots.txt: License: https://your-site.com/license.xml — then publish the RSL document. See https://rslstandard.org. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/rsl#not-found ### Agent Access — 100/100 (reports, does not score) - **PASS** ClaudeBot blocked at the server — consistent with its robots.txt Disallow HTTP 402 for User-Agent containing "ClaudeBot" - **PASS** Claude-SearchBot blocked at the server — consistent with its robots.txt Disallow HTTP 402 for User-Agent containing "Claude-SearchBot" - **PASS** PerplexityBot blocked at the server — consistent with its robots.txt Disallow HTTP 402 for User-Agent containing "PerplexityBot" - **PASS** CCBot blocked at the server — consistent with its robots.txt Disallow HTTP 402 for User-Agent containing "CCBot" ### Structured Data — 90/100 - **PASS** 2 JSON-LD block(s) found - **PASS** @context references schema.org - **WARN** No @graph array (single-entity only) Use an @graph array to define multiple entities in one JSON-LD block: { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [...] } https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/structured-data#no-graph - **PASS** Key types found: Organization, WebSite - **WARN** No BreadcrumbList found Add a BreadcrumbList entity to help AI agents understand your site navigation hierarchy. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/structured-data#no-breadcrumb ### HTTP Headers — 70/100 - **FAIL** Missing critical header: X-Content-Type-Options Add the X-Content-Type-Options response header to your server configuration. This is a critical security header. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/http-headers#missing-critical-header - **WARN** Only 2/7 security headers present Add security headers like Strict-Transport-Security, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and Referrer-Policy to your server response. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/http-headers#low-security-headers - **WARN** No Link header for AI discovery (llms.txt, agent.json) Add a Link response header pointing to your AI discovery files: Link: ; rel="alternate"; type="text/plain", ; rel="alternate"; type="application/json" https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/http-headers#no-link-header ### HTML Rendering — 75/100 - **PASS** Server-rendered content detected (9504 words, 61046 chars of visible text) - **WARN** Low text-to-markup ratio (2.6%) Recommended minimum: 5% A very low text-to-markup ratio is a typical SPA-shell symptom. Inline more content directly into the HTML response. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/html-rendering#low-ratio - **PASS** Semantic landmarks present (main, footer, nav) - **WARN** No

heading found Add a single

describing the page. Agents and search engines treat the H1 as the primary topic indicator. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/html-rendering#no-h1 - **WARN** Only 43/82 tags have alt attributes Add descriptive alt="" to every . Agents use alt text to understand images they cannot process visually. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/html-rendering#missing-alt ### SEO Basics — 95/100 - **WARN** is too long (75 chars) "Associated Press News: Breaking News, Latest Headlines and Videos | AP News…" Shorten the title to 20-70 characters. Many agents and search engines truncate beyond ~70. https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/seo-basics#long-title - **PASS** Meta description length 148 chars - **PASS** Canonical URL: https://apnews.com/ - **PASS** <html lang="en"> - **PASS** UTF-8 charset declared - **PASS** Viewport meta present: "width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, minimum-scale=1.0 user-scalable=yes" - **PASS** 2 hreflang alternate(s) including x-default ### Crawl Efficiency — 90/100 (reports, does not score) - **PASS** Response compressed with Brotli (br) - **PASS** Cache validator present (Last-Modified) - **PASS** Conditional request returns 304 Not Modified - **WARN** Homepage is very large (2.2 MB decompressed) Large documents inflate crawl cost and token usage. Trim inlined data, split content, or serve a Markdown representation to agents (see the content-negotiation check). https://lucioduran.com/projects/ax-audit/guides/crawl-efficiency#large-page --- Markdown representation of https://axrush.com/report/apnews.com