AI Readiness Benchmark · wave 2026-09 · measured 12 Sept 2026 · engine 6.7

News & media

This is a ranking of 26 News & media homepages by AI readiness and SEO health, all measured 12 Sept 2026 under one engine.

How these sites were chosen

News and long-form publishers spanning wire services, national broadcasters, magazines, technology press, science press and independent outlets. Publishers are the most-cited category in AI answers and the most likely to sit behind anti-bot infrastructure, so this sector is expected to produce more skipped rows than the others — those rows are published with their reason rather than dropped. The list was widened on 13 September 2026 after seven of the first twenty refused the fetch, so that the published table clears the twenty-site floor. Homepages only; an article page scores differently. Not a ranking.

Median AI Readiness

42Poor

Median SEO Health

80Good

Sites ranked

26of 36 attempted

Leads

66The Verge

Ranked by AI Readiness

Ties share a rank. SEO Health breaks them; the name breaks the rest. Every row links to the page that was measured.

#	Site	AI Readiness	SEO Health	Entity	Top issue
1	The Vergetheverge.com	66	71	corroborated	AI crawlers are allowed, but some paths are closed to them
2	TIMEtime.com	65	88	corroborated	Your schema doesn't link the site to its public entity records
3	The Atlantictheatlantic.com	62	76	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
4	Engadgetengadget.com	60	88	corroborated	Your schema doesn't link the site to its public entity records
5	ProPublicapropublica.org	58	86	corroborated	Your schema doesn't link the site to its public entity records
6	WIREDwired.com	56	80	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
7	Mashablemashable.com	53	80	corroborated	AI crawlers are allowed, but some paths are closed to them
8	TechCrunchtechcrunch.com	53	78	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
9	Rest of Worldrestofworld.org	52	81	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
10	Voxvox.com	50	74	corroborated	AI crawlers are allowed, but some paths are closed to them
11	The New Yorkernewyorker.com	49	79	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
12	MIT Technology Reviewtechnologyreview.com	43	80	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
13	Slateslate.com	42	81	corroborated	AI crawlers are allowed, but some paths are closed to them
14	Semaforsemafor.com	42	78	corroborated	AI crawlers are allowed, but some paths are closed to them
15	404 Media404media.co	41	75	corroborated	AI crawlers are allowed, but some paths are closed to them
16	Scientific Americanscientificamerican.com	38	83	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
17	Naturenature.com	37	85	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
18	The Intercepttheintercept.com	35	81	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
19	BBCbbc.com	32	77	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
20	Al Jazeeraaljazeera.com	26	83	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
21	Ars Technicaarstechnica.com	26	46	corroborated	No Organization schema declaring who this business is
22	Smashing Magazinesmashingmagazine.com	25	91	corroborated	No Organization schema declaring who this business is
23	The Markupthemarkup.org	25	79	corroborated	No Organization schema declaring who this business is
24	The Hinduthehindu.com	23	84	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
25	The Guardiantheguardian.com	21	75	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on
26	The Conversationtheconversation.com	20	81	corroborated	robots.txt blocks crawlers that AI answer engines depend on

Scored on fewer points — lower bounds, not ranked

A category with nothing measurable is dropped from the denominator, so these scores are lower bounds. They are not placed against a fully scored row.

DWdw.comAI Readiness ≥ 0 on 60 of 100 points · SEO Health ≥ 52 on 82 of 100

Where News & media lags the whole corpus

llms.txtfails on 100% here · 64% across all sectors
AI crawler accessfails on 56% here · 22% across all sectors
Exactly one H1fails on 41% here · 21% across all sectors

Sites that could not be scored

Published with the reason, never dropped. A site that asked not to be fetched was not fetched.

Site	What happened	Detail	Date
Reutersreuters.com	asked us not to	robots.txt disallows / for our crawler	12 Sept 2026
AP Newsapnews.com	served a bot challenge	the site served an anti-bot page instead of its content	12 Sept 2026
NPRnpr.org	did not answer	The page did not respond within 12s	12 Sept 2026
Axiosaxios.com	served a bot challenge	the site served an anti-bot page instead of its content	12 Sept 2026
Politicopolitico.com	served a bot challenge	the site served an anti-bot page instead of its content	12 Sept 2026
The Economisteconomist.com	served a bot challenge	the site served an anti-bot page instead of its content	12 Sept 2026
The Informationtheinformation.com	served a bot challenge	the site served an anti-bot page instead of its content	12 Sept 2026
The Registertheregister.com	asked us not to	robots.txt disallows / for our crawler	12 Sept 2026
Nieman Labniemanlab.org	served a bot challenge	the site served an anti-bot page instead of its content	12 Sept 2026

See where you’d rank against The Verge

The leader is filled in. Add your page and the gap report lays the same scores side by side, with the fixes that close the distance.

Homepages only, measured 12 Sept 2026 under engine 6.7. Maveriko is measured in the Global SaaS sector under the same rules as every other row.

Sources

Last reviewed 12 Sept 2026.