{
 "name": "Merchant Agent-Readiness Index",
 "publisher": "Major Matters",
 "url": "https://majormatters.co/trackers/merchant-readiness",
 "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
 "updated": "2026-09-20",
 "description": "Weekly read-only scan of the largest US retailers: whether a self-identified AI agent can read the robots.txt, whether the homepage is served to a non-browser client, and which agent-facing files are published. Aggregates only.",
 "cite_as": "Major Matters, Merchant Agent-Readiness Index, https://majormatters.co/trackers/merchant-readiness (retrieved YYYY-MM-DD).",
 "sample_source": "NRF Top 100 Retailers 2026, one consumer storefront each; 92 of 100 have one",
 "cadence": "weekly, Saturday 07:00 UTC",
 "primary_vantage": "cloud",
 "runs": [
  {
   "date": "2026-09-20",
   "vantage": "cloud",
   "vantage_label": "GitHub-hosted runner, US data center",
   "sample": 92,
   "robots": {
    "withheld": 29,
    "readable": 63,
    "names_ai_agent": 16,
    "blocks_training_crawler": 5,
    "blocks_search_crawler": 3,
    "blocks_user_agent": 2,
    "content_signals": 1
   },
   "homepage": {
    "served": 50,
    "refused": 28,
    "empty_shell": 7,
    "no_answer": 5,
    "other": 2
   },
   "jsonld_on_served": 31,
   "files": {
    "llms_txt": 16,
    "ucp_profile": 3,
    "a2a_card": 0
   }
  },
  {
   "date": "2026-09-20",
   "vantage": "nord",
   "vantage_label": "Dedicated VPN address, US data center",
   "sample": 92,
   "robots": {
    "withheld": 30,
    "readable": 62,
    "names_ai_agent": 16,
    "blocks_training_crawler": 5,
    "blocks_search_crawler": 3,
    "blocks_user_agent": 2,
    "content_signals": 1
   },
   "homepage": null,
   "jsonld_on_served": null,
   "files": {
    "llms_txt": 16,
    "ucp_profile": 3,
    "a2a_card": 0
   },
   "note": "Comparison run made before the homepage classification was tightened; homepage figures withheld. robots.txt and file counts are comparable."
  },
  {
   "date": "2026-09-20",
   "vantage": "uk-home",
   "vantage_label": "UK residential broadband",
   "sample": 92,
   "robots": {
    "withheld": 39,
    "readable": 53,
    "names_ai_agent": 12,
    "blocks_training_crawler": 4,
    "blocks_search_crawler": 3,
    "blocks_user_agent": 2,
    "content_signals": 1
   },
   "homepage": null,
   "jsonld_on_served": null,
   "files": {
    "llms_txt": 12,
    "ucp_profile": 3,
    "a2a_card": 0
   },
   "note": "Comparison run made before the homepage classification was tightened; homepage figures withheld. robots.txt and file counts are comparable."
  }
 ]
}