# Audits

Every audit the scanner runs, grouped by category. Each page says what the audit checks, when it applies, how it’s scored and how to fix it.

## Retrievability & Access

- [Covering llms.txt](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/covering-llms-txt.md): Whether an llms.txt file covers the URL you scanned, at the root (/llms.txt) or at its path (/docs/llms.txt).
- [Clean fetch](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/clean-fetch.md): Whether the file fetches cleanly: HTTP 200, no auth, at most one same-host redirect.
- [Content type](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/content-type.md): Whether the file is served as text/plain or text/markdown.
- [Encoding and parsing](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/encoding-and-parsing.md): Whether the file is valid UTF-8 and parses cleanly as markdown.
- [AI crawler access](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/ai-crawler-access.md): Whether robots.txt lets the major AI crawlers fetch your llms.txt.

## Spec Conformance

- [Single H1](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/single-h1.md): Whether the file has exactly one H1, and it names your site or organization.
- [Summary blockquote](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/summary-blockquote.md): Whether a blockquote summary follows directly after the H1.
- [H2 sections](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/h2-sections.md): Whether the body is organized into H2 sections that contain link lists.
- [Link line format](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/link-line-format.md): Whether link lines follow the spec form - [name](url): description.

## Curation Quality

- [Signal-to-noise](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/signal-to-noise.md): The share of the file’s links that lead to answer-bearing pages.
- [Link descriptions](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/link-descriptions.md): How many links carry a description, and whether each says what the page answers.
- [Ordering](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/ordering.md): Whether the most citation-worthy content comes first.
- [Token budget](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/token-budget.md): Whether the file fits an agent’s context budget, about 8,000 tokens.
- [URL hygiene](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/url-hygiene.md): Whether link URLs are absolute, canonical, parameter-free and redirect-free.
- [Curation, not a sitemap](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/curation-not-sitemap.md): Whether the file curates your site rather than mirroring your sitemap.
- [Freshness signals](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/freshness-signals.md): Whether the file carries dates that agree with your sitemap and show current content.
- [LLM-friendly links](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/llm-friendly-links.md): The share of the file’s links that point to LLM-friendly content: markdown or plain text rather than an HTML page.

## Agent Readiness

- [Role and scope](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/role-and-scope.md): Whether the file frames its role, its intended audience and its scope for agents.
- [Data-freshness tiers](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/data-freshness-tiers.md): Whether volatile facts are labelled with how fresh they are, and how to caveat them.
- [Intent routing](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/intent-routing.md): Whether the file routes each kind of user question to the right page.
- [Journey flows](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/journey-flows.md): Whether multi-step user paths are written out as numbered flows.
- [Machine surface](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/machine-surface.md): Whether your API or MCP server is documented well enough for an agent to call it.
- [Action endpoints](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/action-endpoints.md): Whether the file tells agents how users can book, quote, apply, buy or get in touch.
- [FAQ blocks](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/faq-blocks.md): Whether the file includes question-and-answer blocks for common questions.
- [Entity identity](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/entity-identity.md): Whether the file states who you are: your legal or brand name, other names or identifiers, and the meaning of your terms.
- [API error handling](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/api-error-handling.md): Whether the API documentation covers errors, rate limits, auth and fallbacks.

## Compliance & Trust

- [Regulatory guardrails](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/regulatory-guardrails.md): Whether the file carries the guardrails of the industry playbook you declared, rule by rule.
- [Prohibited claims](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/prohibited-claims.md): Whether the file tells agents which claims they must never make, for each prohibited claim in your declared playbook.
- [Required disclosures](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/required-disclosures.md): Whether the file tells agents to give the disclosures your declared playbook requires.
- [Human handoff](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/human-handoff.md): Whether the file tells agents when to hand the user to a person, and how to reach one.
- [Disclaimer text](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/disclaimer-text.md): Whether the file gives agents disclaimer text, word for word, to attach to answers.
- [Citation and licensing](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/citation-and-licensing.md): Whether the file says how you’d like to be cited, and on what terms content may be used by AI systems.

## Ecosystem Integration

- [Named AI crawlers](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/named-ai-crawlers.md): Whether robots.txt names AI crawlers explicitly, rather than relying on a catch-all rule.
- [Sitemap freshness](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/sitemap-freshness.md): Whether sitemap.xml is present and its lastmod dates are plausible.
- [Markdown versions](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/markdown-versions.md): Whether the pages your llms.txt links to have clean markdown versions.
- [JSON-LD agreement](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/json-ld-agreement.md): Whether your JSON-LD / schema.org markup agrees with what the file says about who you are.
- [Canonical agreement](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/canonical-agreement.md): Whether the URLs in your file match the pages’ rel=canonical URLs.
- [Agent files](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/agent-files.md): Whether the site publishes agent instruction files: AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md or SKILL.md.
- [Link relations](https://llmsrank.dev/docs/audits/link-relations.md): Whether your pages declare their markdown version and the llms.txt that covers them, with link relations.