12%
score 80 points or more
Roughly one in eight stores has the basics for AI search engines in good shape.
RESEARCH ✦ NOVEMBER 2026
How AI-ready are
Magento stores?
I scanned 426 Magento stores in the Netherlands and Belgium with one question in mind: can AI search engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI read, understand and recommend them? These are the results, with all the caveats included.
MEDIAN SCORE
68/100
- 0–391%
- 40–5928%
- 60–7959%
- 80–10012%
01 / AT A GLANCE
Six numbers
that stand out.
Most stores do reasonably well. But the basics AI assistants need to recommend a product are still incomplete for most of them.
0.5%
block AI search bots in robots.txt
That is rarely where the problem lies. Training bots are blocked more often (21%), and that is a deliberate choice.
29%*
serve AI search bots a block or captcha
Through the firewall or CDN. Often a default setting, not always a deliberate choice.
32%**
have brand, GTIN, price and availability complete
Exactly the data AI assistants use to compare products across stores.
12%**
have no structured data on the product page
An AI assistant then has to work out price, brand and availability from the text itself.
8%
have an llms.txt
A new file for AI assistants. Not a standard yet, but quick to set up.
* Measured with simulated AI search bots; real bots may be treated differently. Treat this as an upper bound.
** Among the 115 stores where the scan found a product page automatically.
02 / FINDINGS
What is going on,
and what to do about it.
Three themes, each with the numbers, what they mean and what you can check yourself. Not rocket science: most of it can be fixed in a few hours.
01 / ACCESS
Not robots.txt, but the firewall
Hardly any store shuts out AI search bots in robots.txt: 0.5%. Training bots, which collect content to train AI models, are blocked more often: 20.7%. That is a legitimate choice, and it does not affect whether you appear in AI answers.
More striking is what happens when an AI search bot actually knocks on the door. At 29% of the stores, at least one of the tested search bots got a block or a captcha, while a regular browser got in without trouble. This is often caused by the bot protection of a CDN or firewall, which stops AI bots by default.
A caveat: I simulated the bots using their user agent. Real bots are sometimes recognised as a "verified bot" and let through, so treat this number as an upper bound. And some stores block bots on purpose; that is their right.
% OF STORES
CHECK IT YOURSELF
- Open your store with the user agent of OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or Claude-SearchBot and see whether you get an error or a captcha.
- Check which bot rules are active in your CDN or firewall, and distinguish between search bots and training bots.
- Make a deliberate choice: if you want to appear in AI answers, let the search bots through.
02 / PRODUCT DATA
The price is there, the brand and GTIN often are not
For 115 stores the scan could find and analyse a product page automatically. 73% use JSON-LD, the format search engines prefer. 15% only have older microdata and 12% have no structured data at all.
Price and availability are usually there. But the brand (54%) and a product code such as a GTIN or EAN (44%) are often missing, while those are exactly what an AI assistant uses to compare products across stores. Only 32% have brand, GTIN, price and availability all complete.
In many stores, brand and EAN do exist as attributes in Magento but never make it into the structured data. Then it is often a small change.
FIELD PRESENT IN PRODUCT SCHEMA
CHECK IT YOURSELF
- Run a product page through Google's Rich Results Test and see which fields are in your Product schema.
- Map the brand and EAN attributes you already have in Magento to the structured data.
- Do you have reviews? Then put them in the data too: only 30% of stores do so now.
03 / DISCOVERABILITY
The basics are nearly there, the new signals are not yet
First the good news: 94% have meta descriptions, and on 87% of product pages the price is right there in the HTML, so it is readable without JavaScript too. Magento stores do well here.
What is missing more often: a sitemap that can be found (64%) and is listed in robots.txt (59%), and Organization data that tells who is behind the store (58%). 8% have an llms.txt. That file is not an official standard yet and there is no guarantee it helps, but it is quick to set up.
% OF STORES
CHECK IT YOURSELF
- Add the link to your sitemap to robots.txt, so every crawler can find it.
- Add Organization schema with your company name, logo, contact details and social profiles.
- Consider an llms.txt with a short description of your store and links to your main categories.
THE BOTTOM LINE
AI assistants recommend what they can read and trust.
03 / METHOD & LIMITATIONS
How I
measured it.
Every store got exactly the same automated scan. That makes the results comparable, but it is still a snapshot with limitations. I list them openly.
01→
Selection
From a public ranking of the world's most visited websites, I took all .nl and .be domains: 20,362 in total.
02→
Detection
Of those, 463 were automatically recognised as Magento stores, based on technical traits in the HTML.
03→
Scan
Every store got the same checks as the free Shortlist scan. 426 scans succeeded: 347 in the Netherlands and 79 in Belgium.
04✦
Anonymous
I only publish totals. No store names appear in this research, and that will not change.
LIMITATIONS
What to keep in mind
- This is a snapshot from November 2026. Stores change all the time.
- The ranking mostly contains larger, high-traffic stores. Smaller stores may look different.
- AI bots were simulated using their user agent. Real bots may be treated differently.
- Product data was only measured for the 115 stores where a product page was found automatically.
- The score comes from my own scan method. It measures whether AI assistants can read your store, not how often they actually mention it.
Spot something that is off, or missing? Let me know. This is the first edition, and I want to repeat and improve the research next year.
04 / YOUR STORE
How does
your store score?
Run the same scan on your own store for free. Within a minute you see your score and the main points to improve. Or send me a message if you want to talk through the results, or have feedback on the research.
Take the free AI scanTELL ME MORE
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