The lab notebook · near-daily
Lab notes
Short, dated, sourced. What changed in AI search, what the hourly Pulse caught, what the checker data shows — the working notes behind the evergreen playbooks.
Aug 26 anthropic.com holds 65/100: rank 7 in panel On 2026-08-26, anthropic.com scored 65/100, ranking 7th in a panel averaging 77.3. Aug 25 openai.com swung 20 to 55 across 26 probes On 2026-08-25, openai.com scored 20/100, ranking last in a panel of 10. Aug 24 wikipedia.org ranks 7 of 10 in panel visibility On 2026-08-24, wikipedia.org scored 65/100, below the panel average of 71.3. Aug 23 notion.so at 63/100: where the points went On 2026-08-23, notion.so scored 63/100, trailing the panel average of 80.8. Aug 22 github.com ranks 6 of 10 in panel on 2026-08-22 On 2026-08-22, github.com scored 80/100, ranking 6th in a panel of 10 sites. Aug 21 vercel.com holds 93/100 — one signal short On 2026-08-21, vercel.com scored 93/100, ranking 3rd in a panel of 10. Aug 20 cloudflare.com leads panel at 100/100 — perfect probe On 2026-08-20, cloudflare.com scored 100/100, topping a panel averaging 76.6. Aug 19 hubspot.com ranks 4th at 90/100 in panel On 2026-08-19, hubspot.com scored 90/100, ranking 4th among 10 sites. Aug 18 shopify.com holds 80/100, rank 6 of 10 in panel On 2026-08-18, shopify.com scored 80/100, ranking 6th in a panel of 10 sites. Aug 17 stripe.com ranks 2 of 10 in panel with 100/100 On 2026-08-17, stripe.com scored 100/100, ranking 2nd in a 10-site panel. Aug 16 anthropic.com ranks 7th in panel at 65/100 On 2026-08-16, anthropic.com scored 65/100, ranking 7th in a panel of 10. Aug 15 openai.com ranks 10 of 10 in panel, score 20/100 On 2026-08-15, openai.com scored 20/100, ranking last in the panel. Aug 14 wikipedia.org ranks 8th in panel with 65/100 On 2026-08-14, wikipedia.org scored 65/100, ranking 8th in a 10-site panel. Aug 13 notion.so at 63/100: where the points went On 2026-08-13, notion.so scored 63/100, ranking 9th in the panel. Aug 12 github.com ranks 5th in panel at 80/100 On 2026-08-12, github.com scored 80/100, ranking 5th in a 10-site panel. Aug 11 vercel.com holds 93/100 — one signal short On 2026-08-11, vercel.com scored 93/100, ranking 3rd in a 10-site panel. Aug 10 cloudflare.com tops panel with 100/100 score On 2026-08-10, cloudflare.com leads a panel averaging 75.6/100. Aug 9 hubspot.com scores 90/100 — strong visibility with a caveat Hubspot.com achieves strong visibility with AI engines, yet needs concise answers under headings. Aug 8 shopify.com at 80/100: visibility with room to grow Shopify.com scores 80/100, showing strong visibility but needs improvements in schema and content structure. Aug 7 stripe.com scores 100/100 — AI-ready and visible stripe.com achieves full AI visibility with a perfect 100/100 score, ensuring its content is easily accessible to AI engines. Aug 6 anthropic.com at 65/100: visibility challenges ahead anthropic.com scores 65/100 with partial visibility, needing key fixes to improve AI-driven reach. Aug 5 openai.com scores 20/100 — largely invisible openai.com is largely invisible to AI crawlers, with key access issues and missing content maps. Aug 4 wikipedia.org at 65/100: visibility issues to address wikipedia.org scores 65/100 in AI visibility, hindered by missing llms.txt and JSON-LD schema. Aug 3 notion.so at 73/100: visibility hindered by schema issues notion.so scores 73/100 with partial visibility due to schema and llms.txt issues. Aug 2 github.com at 80/100: AI-ready but schema-lacking GitHub scores 80/100, showing strong AI visibility but lacking JSON-LD schema. Aug 1 State of llms.txt — August 2026: 2 of the Tranco top-30 serve a valid file Monthly fixed-cohort tracker: 2/30 Tranco-head domains serve a spec-valid llms.txt (6.7%). Down 373 domains vs the 2026-07-11 snapshot (375/5000). Aug 1 vercel.com holds 93/100 — one signal short vercel.com scores 93/100 with strong AI visibility but has a malformed llms.txt file. Jul 31 cloudflare.com scores 100/100 — AI-ready visibility Cloudflare.com achieves perfect AI visibility with strong signals across all core areas. Jul 30 hubspot.com at 90/100: strong visibility with room to refine hubspot.com scores 90/100 with strong AI visibility, needing concise answer capsules under headings. Jul 29 shopify.com at 80/100: visibility strong but schema thin Shopify.com scores 80/100 with strong AI visibility but needs richer schema for better content recognition. Jul 28 stripe.com scores 100/100 — strong visibility confirmed stripe.com achieves a perfect score, ensuring strong visibility in AI-generated answers. Jul 27 anthropic.com scores 65/100: visibility gaps identified anthropic.com scores 65/100 due to missing llms.txt and JSON-LD schema, affecting AI engine visibility. Jul 26 openai.com scores 20/100 — largely invisible openai.com is largely invisible due to server blocks and missing key files, impacting AI crawler access. Jul 25 wikipedia.org at 65/100: AI visibility hurdles wikipedia.org scores 65/100 on AI visibility, hindered by missing llms.txt and JSON-LD schema. Jul 24 notion.so at 73/100: visibility hurdles notion.so scores 73/100 due to malformed llms.txt and missing JSON-LD schema, impacting AI visibility. Jul 23 github.com at 80/100: AI-ready but missing schema GitHub achieves strong visibility with AI engines, but lacks JSON-LD schema on its homepage. Jul 22 vercel.com holds 93/100 — one signal short vercel.com scores 93/100 with strong AI visibility but a malformed llms.txt file. Jul 21 cloudflare.com holds 100/100 — strong visibility confirmed cloudflare.com scores a perfect 100/100 for strong AI visibility, meeting all core signal requirements. Jul 20 hubspot.com scores 90/100 — strong visibility with minor tweaks needed hubspot.com scores 90/100, showing strong AI visibility with room for improvement in content structure. Jul 19 shopify.com at 80/100: AI-ready but needs schema work shopify.com scores 80/100, showing strong AI visibility but lacking detailed schema and concise answer structures. Jul 18 stripe.com at 100/100: strong visibility confirmed stripe.com scores a perfect 100/100 in our GEO Pulse probe, demonstrating strong visibility and AI readiness. Jul 17 anthropic.com at 65/100: visibility gaps to address anthropic.com scores 65/100 with partial visibility; key improvements needed in structured data and content mapping. Jul 16 openai.com at 20/100: largely invisible openai.com scored 20/100, largely invisible due to access issues and lack of structured guidance for AI crawlers. Jul 15 wikipedia.org at 65/100: partial visibility issues wikipedia.org scores 65/100, with AI visibility hindered by missing llms.txt and JSON-LD schema. Jul 14 notion.so at 73/100: partial visibility issues notion.so scores 73/100 with partial visibility due to malformed llms.txt and missing JSON-LD schema. Jul 13 github.com scores 80/100 — visibility strong but schema missing GitHub maintains strong visibility with AI engines but lacks JSON-LD schema, affecting entity recognition. Jul 12 Our own checker gave us 10/100 tonight. The bug class is probably on your site too. geoplaybooks.com scored 10/100 on its own AI-visibility checker: HTTP 522 on reachability, "no robots.txt found". The root cause — a worker cannot fetch its own zone — and why reachability failures ar Jul 12 We tried to review Scrunch AI. Its onboarding blocked us at the last step. Our hands-on Scrunch AI test ended at step 6 of 6: "This brand name violates our company brand policy." What we saw of the onboarding before the door closed — limits, auto-scraping, UX details — and t Jul 12 Profound pricing teardown (2026): $99/month buys 50 prompts and one engine We ran Profound's full onboarding to the paywall. Starter is $99/month for 50 prompts, ChatGPT only, one seat, no trial; Growth is $399/month for 100 prompts and 3 engines with a 7-day trial. There is Jul 12 Otterly.AI review (2026): eight minutes from signup to a real brand report Hands-on Otterly.AI review: 8 minutes from signup to a populated AI-visibility report, 6 engines tracked, sentiment and share-of-voice metrics, and the best PDF export of the four tools we tested — wh Jul 12 LLMrefs review (2026): one €79 plan, unlimited domains, and a free scan before the paywall Hands-on LLMrefs review: one All-in-One plan at €79/month with 500 tracked prompts, weekly runs, unlimited projects and seats, CSV + API — and a live free preview scan before you pay. What we saw, wha Jul 12 We ran our audit on 5 AI-visibility vendors. One passed. We pointed our 5-signal GEO checker at five companies that sell AI-visibility tracking. Scores: 100, 70, 55, 55, 40. Four fail their own medicine — and the failures are the same ones we see everywhere Jul 12 llms.txt adoption: the top 100 domains run 1.5x ahead of everyone else From our July 2026 crawl of the Tranco top 5,000: 11% of the top 100 serve a spec-valid llms.txt vs 7.4% for ranks 101–5,000. Adoption concentrates at the very top of the web. Jul 12 Checker Finds #1: robots.txt is never the problem. Schema is. Across the 13 domains our probes have logged so far, 13/13 pass robots.txt for AI bots — while 7 of 13 fail or half-fail JSON-LD schema and 6 of 13 stumble on llms.txt. The gap, in numbers. Jul 12 Vercel.com Achieves Strong AI Visibility with 93/100 Score Vercel.com is AI-ready with strong visibility, passing 4 of 5 core signals for AI-generated answers. Jul 12 We shipped an MCP server: the lab's tools, inside your AI agent GEO/AEO Playbooks now runs an MCP server: live 5-signal site audits, llms.txt linting, knowledge-base search and the Pulse benchmark — callable natively from Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client. Jul 12 openai.com scores 20/100 on AI visibility. Here's the wall it hit. Our hourly GEO Pulse probe scored openai.com 20/100 on July 12, 2026: robots.txt allows every AI crawler, but the homepage answers HTTP 403. The robots-vs-WAF gap, explained.