In short
The AI Index scores from 0 to 100 what an answer engine — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google's AI overviews — can actually read on a real-estate professional's website. Five pillars: crawler access and text readable without JavaScript (30 pts), JSON-LD markup (25), an answer liftable as-is (20), address and territory readable by a machine (15), technical health (10). Across 446 Canadian firms measured — real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, home inspectors, notaries and lawyers, appraisers — the median is 49 out of 100, and 41 sites are nearly invisible because their content only appears once JavaScript has run, which most AI crawlers do not do. This is not an SEO audit: a site that ranks well in Google can be an empty page to an AI. Enter your domain to get your score and the pillar-by-pillar detail, free and without an account.
The scale
Five pillars, 100 points. This is not an SEO audit: it does not measure your Google ranking, it measures your ability to be read, understood and cited by a machine that answers instead of showing a results page.
| ACCESS | 30 | Can AI crawlers get in, and do they find text once inside? |
|---|---|---|
| STRUCTURE | 25 | JSON-LD markup, correct entity type, resolution links (sameAs). |
| AEO | 20 | Is the answer liftable as-is? Questions, headings, length. |
| LOCAL | 15 | Address, phone, coordinates and territory, machine-readable. |
| TECHNICAL | 10 | Valid HTTPS, mobile, canonical, sitemap. |
The test that outweighs all the others
Is your content in the HTML, or injected by JavaScript? Most AI crawlers do not run JS. A beautiful React, Wix or Webflow site can be an empty page in their eyes — markup and the rest change nothing. That is why this single test carries 15 of the 30 access points.
Where this scale comes from
It comes from our study of 446 Canadian real-estate firms, all scanned with exactly this calculation. The median is 49 out of 100. Read the study.
What this tool does not tell you
- It measures ability, never outcome: it does not say whether an AI actually cites you.
- It reads your homepage. An inner page — team, service, profile — can score very differently.
- We identify honestly as
PayotteAudit. A firewall that refuses unknown agents will refuse us too: we say so, rather than disguising ourselves as an AI crawler to get in. - An unreachable site, or one whose certificate is refused, does not get 0 — it gets no score at all. A gap is not a grade.
Trade by trade, no one is spared
The 446 firms in the study cover the five trades Payotte publishes. The gap between them is small — this is an industry problem, not a profession problem. For reference, an expert profile on Payotte scores 100 on the same scale.
| Trade | Sites measured | Median AI Index |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage Broker | 97 | 53/100 |
| Real Estate Lawyer | 99 | 49/100 |
| Real Estate Broker | 97 | 49/100 |
| Appraiser | 92 | 49/100 |
| Home Inspector | 103 | 48/100 |
| Payotte — expert profile | — | 100/100 |
Reading of 2026-08-18. The overall median is 49/100, on a range running from 6 to 97.
Frequently asked questions
What is the AI Index of a real-estate website?
The AI Index scores from 0 to 100 what an answer engine — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google's AI overviews — can actually read on a real-estate professional's website. Five pillars: crawler access and text readable without JavaScript (30 pts), JSON-LD markup (25), an answer liftable as-is (20), address and territory readable by a machine (15), technical health (10). Across 446 Canadian firms measured — real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, home inspectors, notaries and lawyers, appraisers — the median is 49 out of 100, and 41 sites are nearly invisible because their content only appears once JavaScript has run, which most AI crawlers do not do. This is not an SEO audit: a site that ranks well in Google can be an empty page to an AI. Enter your domain to get your score and the pillar-by-pillar detail, free and without an account.
Does the AI Index measure my Google ranking?
No, and the distinction matters. It measures your ability to be read, understood and cited by an engine that answers instead of showing a results page. A broker who ranks well for "real estate broker + city" can be entirely absent from the answer ChatGPT gives to the same question, because ranking rewards signals the AI does not read — and the reverse happens too.
Why does my React, Wix or Webflow site score low?
Because most AI crawlers do not run JavaScript. If your content is injected by the browser, they see an almost empty page, however well the rest is built. A real case measured in August 2026: a mortgage broker had just rebuilt his site, beautiful and fast — an AI read only 10 words on it, against 576 on the old site it replaced. This single test carries 15 of the 30 access points.
Why should a broker, inspector or notary care?
Because the question is changing shape. A buyer no longer types "home inspector Rosemont" to compare ten results: they ask an assistant who to see, and the answer is a name, not a list. If your site is unreadable to the machine writing that answer, you are not ranked low — you are absent from the text. And unlike a ranking, there is no second page to appear on.
Which page of my site is analyzed?
Your homepage. An inner page — team, service, a professional's profile — can score very differently, often much better, because it answers one precise question. That is true here too: the Payotte homepage scores 97, while an expert profile scores 100.
What if my site refuses the request?
We identify honestly as PayotteAudit. A firewall that refuses agents it does not recognize will refuse us too — without that meaning it blocks real AI crawlers. We say so rather than disguising ourselves as GPTBot to get in, and no score is returned: a gap is not a grade. In that case, check your rules for GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot.
Is the tool free, and what do you do with the domain I enter?
Free, no account, no email asked. The domain is used to run the analysis and is tied to no identity: we count only the number of analyses, to prevent abuse. Same logic as the rest of Payotte — an expert profile is free for life and cannot be bought.
And on Payotte?
Payotte publishes a single verified professional per sector and trade. A profile is free, for life, and cannot be bought. It is scored out of 100 on public data — and it is written to be read by machines.
In the professionals' space
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