AI search readiness for comparison and finder sites
A comparison site is not a seller, and it should not be tested as one. Here is what answer engines actually ask a finder, and what decides whether it is the source they use.
Updated September 3, 2026
A finder, a comparison site or an affiliate guide lists products it does not sell. That distinction matters more than it sounds: the questions worth winning are not about who supplies a particular model, they are about the decision. Somebody choosing between categories, budgets and types is exactly the reader a comparison site is built for, and exactly the question an answer engine has to source from somewhere.
The questions the engine generates
These are the shapes of question the audit builds from your own business profile, then checks your pages against. Yours are generated from your site, in your site’s language.
- Finnish sauna: what should you look out for when buying?
- Infrared cabin: what costs should you expect?
- Which providers for barrel saunas are there?
What the audit reads to recognise this
- Whether the offers on your product pages name you or the manufacturer as the seller
- Whether the offer links point to your domain or to somebody else's
- The Product category field, which supplies the term the decision is actually asked in
What usually goes wrong
The site reads as a shop it is not
Product pages with full commerce markup and no signal of who sells make a finder look like a failing retailer. Naming the real seller in the offer is both more honest and better-read.
Everything is a specification table
Tables compare; they do not advise. The passage that gets quoted is the one that says which option suits which buyer and why, in sentences.
There is no page for the category itself
If every page is one product, there is nothing to match the category question, which is where most of the demand sits. A serious guide to the category is usually the missing page.
The comparison criteria are unstated
A model deciding whether to trust a ranking looks for how it was made. Saying what you compared, and what you did not, is a trust signal and a differentiator at once.
Other site types
- AI search readiness for local businesses. When somebody asks an AI assistant for a provider in their town, the answer names a handful of businesses. Here is what decides whether yours is one of them.
- AI search readiness for online shops. Shoppers now ask an assistant what to buy before they ever reach a shop. Whether your products are in that answer depends on what your product pages state in machine-readable form.
- AI search readiness for SaaS and software companies. Software buyers ask assistants for shortlists and alternatives. Getting onto those lists depends on facts your marketing site usually states everywhere except in text.
- AI search readiness for service businesses and agencies. Service buyers ask assistants who does this work, who is any good, and what it costs. Most agency sites answer none of the three in a form a machine can use.
- AI search readiness for one-page sites and landing pages. A single page has one chance to say what this is, who it is for and why it is credible. Most one-pagers spend it on a slogan.
The seven signals behind the score are explained in how scoring works, and each one has a guide of its own.
Frequently asked questions
- How does the audit know we do not sell what we list?
- From your own markup. If the offer names another company as the seller, or the offer link leaves your domain, the audit treats those products as covered rather than sold, and asks category-level questions instead of asking who supplies a single model.
- Do affiliate links hurt AI search readiness?
- Not in themselves. What hurts is a page that is only links: no independent judgement, no criteria, nothing a model could quote that it could not get from the manufacturer.