Methodology
How the Laudia Score works
Your Laudia Score is one clear number for how easily AI assistants can find and recommend your brand. Here is what each part of the report means, and why it matters.
What you receive
Every audit ends in a one-page report: your number and level, the technical signals, and how AI answered when we asked about you, with the evidence behind each line. Here is a full sample for a fictional client.
Your readiness, as one number
The headline number is how ready your site is for AI search: can the assistants reach it, understand what you offer, find your pages, and read a plain summary of your brand. We grade how well, not just yes or no, and the same site always gives the same Score.
Four signals make up the number, out of 100 points: crawler access (35), structured data (35), sitemap discoverability (20), and a plain-text summary for language models (10). Crawler access is weighted by what a block actually costs, in three tiers: crawlers that decide whether you can be quoted count most, because blocking one can quietly keep you out of AI answers; opting out of model training is a legitimate choice and costs little; and the fetchers an assistant sends when a person asks it to open a page count least, because their own operators say a robots rule may not apply to them. A missing robots file is treated as fully open, never penalized.
The Score dial and level
Where you stand, in four levels
Your number lands in one of four levels: Not yet recognized, Emerging, Recommended, or Cum laude. A low level is a starting point, with a clear path up and exactly where to focus first.
The four levels
What AI says when buyers ask
Separately from the number, we ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini five real buyer questions and show how often you come up, with the answer we got as proof. You see where you are recommended, and where a competitor is named instead.
We compare you within your real market: a neighbourhood studio against other options in its city, a national brand against national peers, a global brand against global names. A ranked rival appears only when at least two assistants named it independently. A name only one assistant mentioned is shown separately, attributed to that assistant, and we never invent a competitor.
The five questions and who got named
Where the answers come from
AI assistants build their answers out of what other websites say. We show you which sources feed the answers in your market, how many assistants cite each one, and whether your own site is among them. The sources your site does not appear in yet are where you can start.
The sheet lists your own site first, then up to 8 other sources, each with the assistants that cite it. These are the sources behind the answers we actually received, not a general ranking of the web.
The sources sheet
How we handle what we can't read
If a site blocks our reader or an engine is briefly unavailable, we mark that signal as not measured and leave it out, instead of guessing. Your number reflects only what we could actually check.
If we can read fewer than two of the four signals, we publish no number at all. When we can read most of your site but not all of it, the result is marked provisional and the level we show is capped, so a partial read never flatters you.
The technical signals
Your fixes, already drafted
The report ends in action: every finding becomes a specific fix, written in plain language for your business. Nothing is guessed and nothing goes live on its own, you review and approve every change before it reaches your site.
Each fix is checked so it never adds a claim you cannot back up, and never touches crawler rules or medical wording. On Shopify and WordPress we can publish approved fixes for you; everywhere else you get a clear guide.
The drafted fixes
A number you can trust over time
Every report carries the version of the method behind it, so your numbers stay comparable as you improve, and every finding comes with its evidence. You can prove progress month over month.
Each engine is queried at a pinned model version, recorded with the result. A change in an underlying model is a deliberate, dated update on our side, never silent drift in your numbers.
The version line
Safe by design. Every change Laudia recommends is labeled and applied only with your approval. We never add crawler-blocking rules or medical claims, so improving your Score never puts your existing search rankings at risk.
Last updated August 6, 2026