--- title: Guides: making a business website usable by AI agents ยท The Direct Index url: https://directindex.org/guides --- [The Direct Index](https://directindex.org/) [Scanner](https://directindex.org/scan)[Cities](https://directindex.org/cities)[Guides](https://directindex.org/guides)[Why](https://directindex.org/why)[Method](https://directindex.org/methodology)[About](https://directindex.org/about) Guides # What to do when assistants cannot use your website Each guide answers one question an owner asks, names the finding on the scan report it fixes, and says where the setting lives on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow and the rest. - **[ChatGPT doesn't show my restaurant. Why, and what to do](https://directindex.org/guides/chatgpt-does-not-show-my-restaurant)** The four reasons an assistant skips a business or sends people to a marketplace instead of its own website, and the fix for each. - **[Am I blocking ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity without knowing?](https://directindex.org/guides/blocking-ai-crawlers-without-knowing)** Hosting firewalls and bot lists refuse AI crawlers on about a quarter of restaurant websites, with no robots.txt rule saying so. How to check in a minute and where the switch is on each builder. - **[robots.txt for AI agents: who to allow, and how](https://directindex.org/guides/robots-txt-for-ai-agents)** The eight AI user agents that matter for a business website, what each one does, a robots.txt you can paste, and Content Signals. - **[My menu is a PDF. Can AI assistants read it?](https://directindex.org/guides/menu-pdf-ai)** Why a PDF or photo menu sends assistants to a delivery app's copy of your menu, and how to publish it as a page on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and the rest. - **[Structured data for a restaurant website, copy and paste](https://directindex.org/guides/structured-data-restaurant)** A JSON-LD block with name, address, phone, opening hours, cuisine, menu and bookings, and where to paste it on each site builder. - **[How to take bookings on your own website, not only through a marketplace](https://directindex.org/guides/book-direct-on-your-own-website)** What an assistant needs to book a table directly, the options from a simple form to booking software on your domain, and how each one scores. - **[Online ordering on your own site, next to the delivery apps](https://directindex.org/guides/online-ordering-without-delivery-apps)** Why assistants send orders to delivery apps, what a direct ordering page needs, and the options from vendor widgets to a simple order form. - **[Agents see a blank page: text without JavaScript](https://directindex.org/guides/website-blank-without-javascript)** Some site builders draw the whole page with scripts, so a crawler that does not run them sees nothing. How to check and what to do. - **[Do I need an llms.txt? What it is, with an example](https://directindex.org/guides/llms-txt-for-a-business)** llms.txt is a short text file that describes your business for language models. Optional today, cheap to add, with a ten-line example for a restaurant. - **[How to check what AI agents see on your website](https://directindex.org/guides/check-what-ai-agents-see)** Four ways to look at your own site the way an assistant does: fetch as the crawlers, read the page source, run the scanner, and ask the assistants directly. Short on time? [The five fixes that move the score most](https://directindex.org/fix), or [scan your site](https://directindex.org/scan) and read only the guides your report links to. #### The Direct Index [Why direct](https://directindex.org/why)[About and principles](https://directindex.org/about)[Methodology](https://directindex.org/methodology)[Privacy](https://directindex.org/privacy) #### Use it [Free scanner](https://directindex.org/scan)[City indexes](https://directindex.org/cities)[Guides](https://directindex.org/guides)[Common fixes](https://directindex.org/fix)[What agent-direct means](https://directindex.org/agent-direct) #### For agents [llms.txt](https://directindex.org/llms.txt)[llms-full.txt](https://directindex.org/llms-full.txt)[OpenAPI](https://directindex.org/openapi.json)[MCP server](https://directindex.org/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json)[A2A agent](https://directindex.org/.well-known/agent-card.json) #### Data [City data, JSON and Markdown](https://directindex.org/cities)[Sitemap](https://directindex.org/sitemap.xml) Business listings from OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Scores under the same licence. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://directindex.org/#org","name":"The Direct Index","url":"https://directindex.org/","logo":"https://directindex.org/favicon.svg","founder":{"@type":"Person","name":"Antonio Curado"},"description":"Independent measurement of whether AI agents can find, read and act on a business's own website."},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://directindex.org/#site","url":"https://directindex.org/","name":"The Direct Index","publisher":{"@id":"https://directindex.org/#org"},"inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://directindex.org/scan?url={url}"},"query-input":"required name=url"}},{"@type":"WebAPI","name":"The Direct Index API","url":"https://directindex.org/openapi.json","documentation":"https://directindex.org/llms-full.txt","provider":{"@id":"https://directindex.org/#org"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ItemList","name":"Guides: making a business website usable by AI agents","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"ChatGPT doesn't show my restaurant. 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