93 business websites, five studies: what actually decides AI visibility
I have scanned 93 business websites across five studies this month, and two findings show up in every single one: structured data is the biggest score gap I can measure, and almost nobody has added FAQ markup.
This month I ran five separate scans, clinics, hotels, restaurants, hair transplant clinics, and a mixed international sample, each one a real scan against real homepages, each one scored with the same free Report Card. This post does not add a new scan. It lines up the five I already ran and recomputes every number below straight from that data.
| Study | Sites | Median | Structured data split | FAQ markup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clinics (India) | 16 | 77 | 80.5 with, 54 without (26.5 point gap) | not recorded |
| Hotels (India) | 25 | 76 | 83.5 with, 56 without (27.5 point gap) | 0 of 25 |
| Restaurants (India) | 15 | 79 | 81 with, 49.5 without (31.5 point gap) | 0 of 15 |
| Hair transplant clinics (India) | 13 | 89 | near-universal (12 of 13) | 4 of 13 |
| International (US, Canada, Australia) | 24 | 85.5 | 88.5 with, 58.5 without (30 point gap) | 3 of 24 |
93 business websites total across the five studies.
Finding one: structured data is the divider, everywhere
In four of the five studies, having structured data on the homepage was the single biggest score difference I found, bigger than any gap between individual verticals. Sites with structured data scored 26.5 to 31.5 points higher than sites without it: clinics (80.5 vs 54), hotels (83.5 vs 56), restaurants (81 vs 49.5, the widest gap of all), and the international sample (88.5 vs 58.5). That is close to the distance between a C and an A on the same scan.
The one study without a gap to report is hair transplant clinics, and that is the interesting part, not an exception to wave away. 12 of 13 sites already had structured data, so there was barely a without group left to compare against. Hair transplant clinics also carry the highest median score of any of the five, 89. The vertical that fights hardest for paid search clicks apparently already standardized on the thing that also helps AI visibility. Structured data is not just correlated with a higher score, it is what the best performing vertical already did.
Finding two: FAQ markup is the universal blind spot
The blind spot that shows up in every study I checked is FAQ markup. Across the four studies where I recorded it (hotels, restaurants, hair transplant clinics, and international, 77 sites total), only 7 had it. That includes verticals with medians in the high 70s and high 80s: solid scores overall, still missing a block of markup that takes almost no effort to add. It is the cheapest fix I can point to with a straight face, and it sits undone on 70 of those 77 sites.
Why the medians differ
The medians line up with how competitive and paid search driven a vertical is, not with how good the businesses actually are. Hair transplant clinics (89) and the international mix of law, dental, hotel, restaurant, and med spa sites (85.5) sit at the top; hotels (76) and clinics (77) sit at the bottom. Read that as a proxy for marketing pressure and ad spend, not as proof that a hotel website is worse than a hair transplant clinic's. It measures how hard a category has had to fight for visibility, not the quality of the businesses in it.
The takeaway
The fix is the same across all five studies: add structured data if you do not have it, and add an FAQ block either way, since almost nobody has. The hair transplant numbers are the proof this works, not a theory: the vertical that standardized on structured data is also the one that scored highest. Run your own site through the free Report Card to see where you stand, then use the schema generator to fix whatever it flags.
Method and limits
Every study used the same method: one fetch of each homepage, no JavaScript execution, a fixed list of signals scored the same way across all 93 sites, homepage only, no inner pages. The samples are small, 13 to 25 sites per study, so I would not lean on any single study's median down to the decimal point. What I do trust is that the structured data gap and the FAQ gap show up the same way study after study; a pattern that repeats across five independent scans with different sample sizes is more reliable than any one scan alone.
Frequently asked questions
What is the single most common gap across all these sites?
FAQ markup, by a wide margin. Only 7 of the 77 sites I checked for it had any FAQ schema at all. It is close to a five minute markup job with a real payoff, and almost nobody in any vertical has done it yet.
Is structured data really that important?
In four of the five studies, yes. It was the single biggest score difference I measured, 26.5 to 31.5 points between sites with it and sites without it. The fifth study, hair transplant clinics, could not produce a gap only because nearly every site already had structured data, which tells you the same thing a different way.
Why do some verticals score higher than others?
The medians track competition and paid search pressure more than business quality. Hair transplant clinics and the international mix score highest because those categories fight hardest for clicks and have already fixed the basics. Hotels and Indian clinics score lower, which says more about how contested the category is than how good any individual business is.
How were these 93 sites measured?
Each site was scanned once with the same free Report Card engine: one homepage fetch, no JavaScript, and a fixed set of signals including structured data and FAQ markup, scored the same way across all five studies. You can run the identical check on your own site with the same tool.