> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zued.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Technical Score

> Whether AI crawlers can access, render, and parse your pages. One of zued's two primary KPIs, alongside the Alignment Score.

The **Technical Score** measures whether AI crawlers can actually reach and understand your content. It's one of zued's two primary KPIs — because perfectly aligned content is irrelevant if AI crawlers can't access it.

Technical issues always receive the highest priority in zued's recommendation system. Fix them before any content changes.

## Components

| Component         |  Weight | What it checks                                                                 |
| ----------------- | :-----: | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| JS Rendering      | Highest | How much of your content is visible without JavaScript execution               |
| Page Performance  |   High  | LCP, TTFB, FID/INP, CLS — page load speed, server response time, and stability |
| Bot Accessibility |   High  | `robots.txt` rules and `meta robots` tags per AI crawler                       |
| Structured Data   |  Lower  | Presence of Schema.org markup — only confirmed to help Copilot                 |
| Meta Tags         |  Lower  | Title tag and meta description presence                                        |

**Total: 100 points.** Components are weighted by their impact on AI crawler access. Some have circuit breakers — critical failures cap the maximum score regardless of other factors.

## Score levels

|  Score | What it means                                                         |
| :----: | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 90–100 | Excellent — AI crawlers can access and parse your content effectively |
|  70–89 | Minor gaps — typically structured data or meta tag issues             |
|  50–69 | Crawlability affected — JS rendering or performance issues            |
|  \< 50 | Critical problems — bot blocking or severe JS dependency              |

## Bot accessibility

zued checks access individually for each AI crawler: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Bingbot, Google-Extended, and others. A single `robots.txt` rule or `meta robots` tag can block one engine while leaving others unaffected.

<Warning>
  Blocking an AI crawler in `robots.txt` or via `meta robots` means **zero visibility** for that engine — regardless of content quality. zued flags these as Priority 100 issues.
</Warning>

## JS rendering

If your content requires JavaScript to appear, some AI crawlers may never see it. zued compares your page before and after JavaScript execution and flags content that only appears post-render as a crawlability risk.

## Server response time (TTFB)

Time to First Byte measures how quickly your server begins responding to a request. For AI visibility, this matters at the retrieval stage: when an AI engine's crawler requests your page, a slow server response reduces the number of pages it can fetch within its crawl budget and may cause it to deprioritize your domain entirely.

Pages with consistently slow server response times are less likely to enter the candidate pool that AI engines draw from when generating answers. zued measures TTFB and applies score caps when response times are high enough to impact crawl efficiency.

**Target response times:**

| TTFB      | Assessment                                                                                                        |
| :-------- | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| \< 200ms  | Optimal — meets Google's recommended server response time and keeps pages eligible for tight AI retrieval windows |
| 200–500ms | Acceptable for most scenarios, but may miss retrieval windows during high-concurrency fan-out queries             |
| > 500ms   | Likely to trigger crawl rate throttling and reduce the number of your pages that AI engines can fetch             |

Google [recommends](https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/Server) a server response time under 200ms. For AI crawlers, this target is even more important: LLM retrieval operates under strict latency budgets during real-time search, and sites with fast response times receive significantly more crawler requests than slower sites.

## Structured data

<Info>
  Structured data (Schema.org) is confirmed to assist Copilot's understanding. Its direct benefit for ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini citation behavior is not established. zued scores its presence accurately for what it affects.
</Info>