US Cities (Top 1,000)
cities-1000
The 1,000 most populous US cities.
Median score
28
across 974 sites
Middle half
28–33
spread around the median
Full range
28–65
lowest to highest
Gated
926 of 974
block AI crawlers outright
Middle of 14 cohorts. All cohorts 50 · best cohort 58.
Where this list came from
The source, and how we filtered it
| Source | The 1,000 most populous US cities, Census Vintage 2025, US Census Bureau, with CISA and Wikidata (2025-vintage) |
|---|---|
| License | No restriction on the combined list. The roster is a work of the US federal government and carries no copyright, the CISA .gov registry is public domain, and Wikidata is CC0 1.0 Universal; the cohort goes out under the Census's CC BY-SA 4.0 like the rest. |
| How we filtered it | The roster is the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates (sub-est2025.csv) with SUMLEV 162, 19,483 incorporated places, sorted by POPESTIMATE2025 and cut at 1,000. The cutoff is a population of 41,319 (Friendswood, Texas), because the top thousand is not reproducible and a threshold is. Each city's address came from the CISA .gov registry, then Wikidata (P856, joined on the place FIPS code in P774), and 19 were resolved by hand and confirmed by loading the site. |
| Built | 2026-10-11 |
The filtering is ours and is disclosed as ours. The source published a list; the decision about which rows of it belong in a cohort was a judgment call, and it is written down so somebody can disagree with it.
Distribution
Where the 974 sites land
| Grade | Share of the cohort | Sites | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not ready | 887 | 91.1% | |
| Weak | 80 | 8.2% | |
| Adequate | 7 | 0.7% |
By dimension
What the cohort earns, dimension by dimension
The mean share of each dimension’s available points that this cohort earned. Low here means the whole sector is weak on it, not that one site dragged an average down. The per-site spread is in the dataset.
| Dimension | Mean share earned | Mean |
|---|---|---|
| #1 · Reach
These parameters determine the fundamental ease of access that AI has to your site information. |
46% | |
| #2 · Read
AI generally turns off JavaScript. Does your site information survive without it? |
22% | |
| #3 · Understand
Does a machine know who and what you are? |
19% | |
| #4 · Act
Sitemaps, redirects, 404s, licensing terms, and not wasting the crawl budget. |
72% |
How much of each site we read
The cap is 32 URLs and it is a ceiling, not a promise. A portal whose every link points at a different host yields one page; a university yields the full sample. The median here is 1, the range 1–32, published so that "we sampled 32 URLs per site" cannot become a claim the data does not support.
4 sites in this cohort served a certificate we could not verify. They were read anyway and scored normally, because reporting no response for a site every browser loads would describe our TLS stack rather than the site, and each one carries the finding in its row.
Where this cohort fails
14 tests almost nobody in this cohort passes
Universal — nobody passes these
| Test | What it asks | Failing | Of | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXT-11 | Have you marked the part of a page that answers a spoken question? | 974 | 0 | |
| EXT-12 | Do you tell search engines the moment a page changes? | 974 | 0 | |
| EXT-14 | Does your site offer its actions to AI browsers as tools? | 713 | 0 | |
| EXT-16 | Do you publish a card or a skills list for the agents you run? | 974 | 0 | |
| EXT-17 | Do you list your agents in your domain's DNS records? | 893 | 0 | |
| EXT-18 | Do you tell AI shoppers how they can pay? | 1 | 0 | |
| EXT-2 | Do you list your APIs and agent tools where agents look for them? | 5 | 0 | |
| EXT-7 | If you run real question-and-answer pages, are they marked as such? | 16 | 0 | |
| PST-2 | Have you posted a Content Signals statement about what AI may do with your content? | 974 | 0 | |
| RED-11 | Does each page tell machines where its Markdown copy is? | 1 | 1 | |
| RED-12 | If a machine asks for Markdown, does your site give it? | 974 | 2 | |
| UND-1 | Does your site say clearly who you are? | 974 | 2 | |
| UND-10 | Does your page code link to your official profiles elsewhere? | 974 | 2 | |
| UND-2 | Does your site use the page labels that search engines still read for what you publish? | 974 | 3 |
Near-universal — 95% and above
| Test | What it asks | Failing | Of | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXT-1 | Do you publish an llms.txt file for coding assistants? | 974 | 0 | |
| EXT-13 | Can an assistant ask your site a question directly? | 974 | 0 | |
| PST-4 | Have you reserved your text and data mining rights in a form machines can read? | 974 | 0 | |
| EXT-4 | Can an AI assistant connect to your site as a tool? | 974 | 0 | |
| UND-6 | Are your published and updated dates honest and visible? | 974 | 6 | |
| EXT-5 | Is your page code one connected description of your organization? | 974 | 0 | |
| RCH-3 | Does each page say which web address is the real one? | 974 | 2 | |
| RED-10 | Do you offer a plain-text (Markdown) copy of your pages? | 76 | 2 | |
| RED-13 | Is the page built from real page parts, like header, main and navigation? | 974 | 1 | |
| MSR-7 | Are you set up in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and do you read their AI reports? | 974 | 0 | |
| RED-5 | Do your PDFs and images have their own rules for search and quoting? | 77 | 1 | |
| UND-5 | Does the author label in your page code point to that person? | 60 | 1 | |
| RED-3 | Can a crawler trust the 'last changed' dates in your sitemap? | 974 | 2 | |
| RED-8 | Do you have sitemaps for your images and videos? | 974 | 1 | |
| RCH-2 | Does your website let those crawlers in, or does your security turn them away? | 974 | 12 |
Common — 90 to 95%
Coral bars mark tests worth 2 points or more, the failures that actually move a score.
Every site
Every 1,000, named, with a report for each
Whether or not it has been scanned. Rows with no website on record, sites that were unreachable and sites that turned us away stay in the table with the reason on them, and none of them enters an average: dropping them would shrink the population to the part that was easy to measure. A few points between two neighbors is noise. The box filters every row in the cohort, not only the page you are on; click a header to sort the rows on this page by name or by score.
Showing 501–600 of 1,000 · page 6 of 10
| Site | Score | Gated | Pages read | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blaine, Minnesota blainemn.govregistered as City of Blaine in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Napa, California cityofnapa.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Gulfport, Mississippi gulfport-ms.govregistered as City of Gulfport Mississippi in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Evanston, Illinois cityofevanston.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 57 | No | 32 | |
| New Britain, Connecticut newbritainct.govregistered as City of New Britain Connecticut in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Iowa City, Iowa icgov.orgblockedCity of Iowa City, verified by fetching the site; not measured: HTTP 403 (Akamai) | — | No | — | |
| Arlington Heights, Illinois vah.comweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 55 | Gated | 32 | |
| Noblesville, Indiana cityofnoblesville.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Southfield, Michigan cityofsouthfield.comCity of Southfield, verified by fetching the site; the registry name match landed on Southfield Township | 59 | No | 31 | |
| Rock Hill, South Carolina cityofrockhillsc.govregistered as City of Rock Hill in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Hammond, Indiana gohammond.comweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 49 | No | 32 | |
| Lauderhill, Florida lauderhillfl.govregistered as City of Lauderhill in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Scranton, Pennsylvania scrantonpa.govregistered as City of Scranton in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Appleton, Wisconsin appletonwi.govregistered as City of Appleton in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Greenville, South Carolina greenvillesc.govregistered as City of Greenville in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Apple Valley, California applevalleyca.govregistered as Town of Apple Valley in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Lake Elsinore, California lake-elsinore.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| St. Cloud, Florida stcloudfl.govregistered as City of St. Cloud in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Johnson City, Tennessee johnsoncitytn.govregistered as City of Johnson City in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Bolingbrook, Illinois bolingbrook.govregistered as Village of Bolingbrook in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Bayonne, New Jersey bayonnenj.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 41 | No | 2 | |
| Bellflower, California bellflower.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Pleasanton, California pleasantonca.govregistered as City of Pleasanton in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| West Des Moines, Iowa wdm.iowa.govweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Tamarac, Florida tamarac.govregistered as City of Tamarac in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Redlands, California redlands.govregistered as City of Redlands in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Tulare, California tulare.ca.govweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Maple Grove, Minnesota maplegrovemn.govregistered as City of Maple Grove in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Wilmington, Delaware wilmingtonde.govregistered as City of Wilmington in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Framingham, Massachusetts framinghamma.govregistered as Town of Framingham in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Turlock, California turlockca.govregistered as City of Turlock in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Jacksonville, North Carolina jacksonvillenc.govregistered as City of Jacksonville in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Kalamazoo, Michigan kalamazoocity.govregistered as City of Kalamazoo in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| St. Cloud, Minnesota stcloudmn.govregistered as City of St. Cloud, MN in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| St. Charles, Missouri stcharlescitymo.govregistered as St. Charles City in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Harlingen, Texas harlingentx.govregistered as City Of Harlingen in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Eau Claire, Wisconsin eauclairewi.govregistered as City of Eau Claire in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Commerce City, Colorado ci.commerce-city.co.usweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Conway, Arkansas conwayarkansas.govregistered as City of Conway, Arkansas in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Mount Vernon, New York mountvernonny.govregistered as City of Mount Vernon in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| East Orange, New Jersey eastorange-nj.govregistered as City Of East ORange in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Dothan, Alabama dothan.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Grand Junction, Colorado gjcity.orgCity of Grand Junction, verified by fetching the site | 52 | No | 16 | |
| Idaho Falls, Idaho idahofalls.govregistered as City of Idaho Falls in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Ocala, Florida ocalafl.govregistered as City of Ocala in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Dublin, California dublinca.govregistered as City of Dublin in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Camden, New Jersey camdennj.govregistered as City of Camden in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Passaic, New Jersey cityofpassaicnj.govregistered as City of Passaic in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Lafayette, Indiana lafayette.in.govweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Gaithersburg, Maryland gaithersburgmd.govregistered as City of Gaithersburg in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| St. Joseph, Missouri stjosephmo.govregistered as City of St. Joseph in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Waukesha, Wisconsin waukesha-wi.govregistered as City of Waukesha in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| North Richland Hills, Texas nrhtx.comblockedweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| Eastvale, California eastvaleca.govregistered as City of Eastvale in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Walnut Creek, California walnutcreekca.govregistered as City of Walnut Creek in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Kyle, Texas cityofkyle.govregistered as City of Kyle in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Portland, Maine portlandmaine.govregistered as City of Portland, Maine in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Shawnee, Kansas cityofshawnee.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Delray Beach, Florida delraybeachfl.govregistered as City of Delray Beach in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Casa Grande, Arizona casagrandeaz.govregistered as City of Casa Grande in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Weston, Florida westonfl.govregistered as City of Weston, Florida in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Yuba City, California yubacity.govregistered as City of Yuba City in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Schenectady, New York schenectadyny.govregistered as City of Schenectady in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Greenwood, Indiana greenwood.in.govweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Jackson, Tennessee jacksontn.govregistered as City of Jackson, TN in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Lodi, California lodi.govregistered as City of Lodi in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Madera, California madera.govregistered as City of Madera in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Canton, Ohio cantonohio.govregistered as City of Canton, Ohio in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Baldwin Park, California baldwinparkca.govregistered as City of Baldwin Park in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Camarillo, California camarillo.govregistered as City of Camarillo in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Huntersville, North Carolina huntersville.orgblockedweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry; not measured: HTTP 403 (Cloudflare) | — | No | — | |
| Haverhill, Massachusetts haverhillma.govregistered as City of Haverhill in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Pflugerville, Texas pflugervilletx.govregistered as City of Pflugerville in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Ames, Iowa cityofames.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 43 | Gated | 32 | |
| Madison, Alabama madisonal.govregistered as City of Madison in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Rowlett, Texas rowletttx.govregistered as City of Rowlett in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Decatur, Illinois decaturil.govregistered as City of Decatur Illinois in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Palo Alto, California paloalto.govregistered as City of Palo Alto in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Rockville, Maryland rockvillemd.govregistered as City of Rockville in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Sanford, Florida sanfordfl.govregistered as City Of Sanford in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Oshkosh, Wisconsin oshkoshwi.govregistered as City of Oshkosh in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Novi, Michigan cityofnovi.govregistered as City of Novi in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Gary, Indiana gary.govregistered as City of Gary in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Redondo Beach, California redondo.govregistered as City of Redondo Beach in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Eagan, Minnesota eaganmn.govregistered as City of Eagan in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Janesville, Wisconsin janesvillewi.govregistered as City of Janesville in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Alpharetta, Georgia alpharettaga.govregistered as City of Alpharetta in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Waterloo, Iowa ci.waterloo.ia.usweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 54 | Gated | 32 | |
| Albany, Georgia albanyga.govregistered as City of Albany in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Union City, New Jersey ucnj.comweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 49 | No | 2 | |
| Brentwood, California brentwoodca.govregistered as City of Brentwood in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Eagle Mountain, Utah eaglemountain.govregistered as Eagle Mountain City in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Skokie, Illinois skokie.govregistered as Village of Skokie in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Shoreline, Washington shorelinewa.govregistered as City of Shoreline in the .gov registry | 28 | Gated | 1 | |
| Cheyenne, Wyoming cheyennecity.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 51 | Gated | 32 | |
| Victoria, Texas victoriatx.govregistered as City of victoria in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Port Orange, Florida port-orange.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Malden, Massachusetts cityofmalden.orgweb address from Wikidata (P856), not the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Westfield, Indiana westfieldin.govregistered as City of Westfield in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 | |
| Davis, California davisca.govregistered as The City of Davis in the .gov registry | 33 | Gated | 1 |
Scores are for the population, not for ranking two named sites against each other. A few points between neighbors is noise. See what these numbers can and cannot support. Data: sites.csv · checks.csv · summary.json