---
title: "Zillow agent readiness: the 360 check | Agent Ready Crawlers"
description: "Zillow on Ora's agent-readiness scan, read 2026-11-09: 48 of 100, grade C. What agents meet at the door, what they can read and do, and the fixes worth most."
canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/blog/zillow-agent-readiness
site: "Agent Ready Crawlers"
last_updated: 2026-11-09
date: 2026-11-09
section: "360 checks"
---

# Zillow agent readiness: the 360 check | Agent Ready Crawlers

> Zillow on Ora's agent-readiness scan, read 2026-11-09: 48 of 100, grade C. What agents meet at the door, what they can read and do, and the fixes worth most.

Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/blog/zillow-agent-readiness
Site: Agent Ready Crawlers
Last reviewed: 2026-11-09
Agent endpoints: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/llms.txt (index), https://agentreadycrawlers.com/openapi.json (API), https://agentreadycrawlers.com/mcp (MCP server), https://agentreadycrawlers.com/ask (search)
Access: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/auth.md (no key). Pricing: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/pricing.md (free).

360 check, 9 November 2026

# Zillow: the 360 agent-readiness check

In short

Zillow scores 48 of 100 on Ora's agent-readiness scan, a C, read 9 November 2026. At the door, agents blocked: ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot. 18 of 82 applicable checks pass; the gap worth most is OpenAPI spec published, about 4.7 points by Ora's estimate. An MCP server behind a wall its own policy says should be open.

Zillow is the most-visited US real estate site. On 9 November 2026 its public site scored **48 of 100** on [Ora's](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) agent-readiness scan, a C, in Ora's Real Estate & Construction category. Ora probes a site the way an agent would: it requests pages with the agents' own user agents, reads robots.txt, looks for the files agents read, and tries the API, MCP and payment surfaces. The check below walks through all 132 of its checks for this one domain, grouped the way an agent meets them. Ora's one-line summary: Zillow offers strong homepage discoverability and robots.txt policies for agents, but lacks published OpenAPI specification.

## The score

| Layer | Asks | Points | Share |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Discovery | Can agents find and recommend it | 11 of 13 | 85% |
| Access | Can agents read it | 13 of 50 | 26% |
| Usability | Can agents use it | 30 of 66 | 45% |
| Payments | Can agents pay | 0 of 0 | none apply |
| Total | Grade C | 48 of 100 | 48% |

**

18 checks pass, 7 are partial, 57 fail and 50 do not apply to this site. Every check is defined in [Ora's catalog](https://ora.ai/api/checks?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) (read 2026-11-05); the result for each one is in the groups below, with what Ora saw where it said.

## At the door

What the site answers when a request arrives with an agent’s user agent, and what robots.txt says to the crawlers in the Index. 1 check in this group does not apply to this site and is left out.

Agents named in Ora's results, with their Index rows: [ChatGPT-User](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/chatgpt-user/), [OAI-SearchBot](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/oai-searchbot/), [Claude-User](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/claude-user/), [PerplexityBot](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/perplexitybot/), [Perplexity-User](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/perplexity-user/).

| Check | Result | Points | What Ora saw |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Not blocked by bot detection | Fail | 0 of 2 | Agents blocked: ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot |
| Agent crawler reachability | Fail | 0 of 2 | No agent we tested can reach the homepage - ChatGPT-User: blocked, OAI-SearchBot: blocked, Claude-User: blocked, PerplexityBot: blocked |
| robots.txt AI crawler policy | Pass | 2 of 2 | AI search crawlers: allowed in 3 of 3 checks (3 crawlers on 1 page). AI training crawlers: allowed in 2 of 2 checks (2 crawlers on 1 page), not scored. |
| robots.txt agent-user policy | Pass | 2 of 2 | No applicable crawl or usage restriction found for 3 user-triggered agents (chatgpt-user, claude-user, perplexity-user) on 1 public page: https://zillow.com/. Declared policy only; |
| Homepage not hidden from search | Pass | 1 of 1 | No noindex on the homepage: no robots, googlebot or bingbot meta tag and no X-Robots-Tag header hides it from search. |
| Redirect hygiene | Pass | 1 of 1 | Pages agents land on serve real content, not meta-refresh or JavaScript-only redirect stubs that strand non-JS agents |
| Web Bot Auth directory | Fail | 0 of 2 | No /.well-known/http-message-signatures-directory found |

## What an agent can read

Whether the text is in the first response, what the site publishes for agents, and how it describes itself to them. 1 check in this group does not apply to this site and is left out.

| Check | Result | Points | What Ora saw |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Content without JavaScript | Partial | 2 of 3 | 4779 chars with H1, but heading hierarchy skips H1 to H6 |
| Page token budget | Pass | 1 of 1 | All 1 measured page fit an agent context budget (largest ~1K tokens) |
| Sitemap exists | Pass | 2 of 2 | Valid sitemap found at https://mortgageapi.zillow.com/sitemap.xml with multiple sitemaps entries |
| Sitemap freshness (lastmod) | Pass | 1 of 1 | Dates in your sitemap tell agents what changed and when, so they reread fresh pages instead of guessing. We check lastmod dates parse and the newest is recent. |
| llms.txt exists | Fail | 0 of 1 | No llms.txt found at /llms.txt or /.well-known/llms.txt. |
| llms.txt formatting | Fail | 0 of 2 | No llms.txt found to evaluate quality |
| Markdown agent docs | Fail | 0 of 1 | Missing markdown content negotiation. Homepage returned text/html when probed with Accept: text/markdown (expected text/markdown), and none of the well-known root paths (/llms.md, /auth.md, /agents.md, /developers.md, |
| Markdown URL fallback | Fail | 0 of 2 | Homepage does not support the .md suffix. Probed https://zillow.com/index.md and it did not return markdown (expected text/markdown content-type or a heading-led non-HTML body). |
| Bot-UA markdown serving | Fail | 0 of 1 | No probed bot User-Agent (ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User) receives markdown when requesting HTML. Optional: detect AI-bot UAs server-side and serve them a markdown representation directly. |
| Agent mode view | Fail | 0 of 2 | ?mode=agent returns same content as homepage (no dedicated agent view) |
| JSON-LD structured data | Fail | 0 of 4 | No JSON-LD structured data found on homepage |
| Organization schema completeness | Fail | 0 of 2 | No JSON-LD found - Organization schema missing |
| JSON-LD entity linking (sameAs) | Fail | 0 of 2 | No JSON-LD found - no entity linking possible |
| Schema type breadth | Fail | 0 of 2 | No extended schema types found - AI can only answer basic questions about this entity |
| Metadata completeness | Partial | 1 of 2 | 2/4 metadata signals present - missing: og:image, og:type |
| Agent instruction / when-to-use | Fail | 0 of 3 | No agent instruction file with when-to-use guidance found |

## What an agent can do

The surfaces an agent acts on: an API it can find and call, an MCP server, an agent card, a command line. 3 checks in this group do not apply to this site and are left out.

| Check | Result | Points | What Ora saw |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Public API with reachable endpoints | Pass | 7 of 7 | GraphQL endpoint at https://www.zillow.com/graphql is reachable; introspection requires authentication (API key / OAuth), which is expected for agent access. Best-of-protocols score: 7/7. |
| Public API/docs linked from homepage | Fail | 0 of 3 | No public API or documentation page linked from homepage |
| OpenAPI spec published | Fail | 0 of 7 | No OpenAPI/Swagger specification found |
| API catalog (RFC 9727) | Fail | 0 of 2 | No /.well-known/api-catalog found (RFC 9727) |
| MCP server / manifest | Partial | 5 of 6 | MCP server detected at https://mcp.zillow.com/mcp; it requires authentication. Presence is verified (5/6), but Ora could not inspect its tools or verify access scopes without credentials. |
| MCP well-known discovery | Partial | 1 of 2 | MCP server at https://mcp.zillow.com/mcp - list its server card, hosted on your own domain, in /.well-known/ai-catalog.json so MCP clients can discover it |
| A2A / agent-card | Fail | 0 of 2 | No A2A agent card found at /.well-known/agent-card.json |
| Agent discovery file | Fail | 0 of 2 | No agent discovery file found |
| OAuth 2.0 support | Pass | 5 of 5 | OpenID Connect discovery endpoint found at https://auth.zillow.com |
| OAuth Protected Resource metadata (RFC 9728) | Pass | 2 of 2 | Metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource (RFC 9728) that tells agents your auth requirements up front, instead of leaving them to trial and error. |
| auth.md exists | Fail | 0 of 2 | No /auth.md found at site root |
| WebMCP support | Fail | 0 of 5 | No WebMCP support detected - no document.modelContext / navigator.modelContext usage found (scanned 8 of 11 same-origin script bundle(s) for modelContext registrations) |
| NLWeb /ask endpoint | Pass | 1 of 1 | NLWeb /ask endpoint exists but requires authentication (HTTP 403, via POST) |
| Rate limit response headers | Fail | 0 of 2 | GraphQL introspection auth-gated and no header convention documented on GraphQL-tagged pages |
| Idempotency-Key support | Fail | 0 of 3 | GraphQL introspection auth-gated and no idempotency documentation found on GraphQL-tagged pages |
| JSON error responses | Fail | 0 of 4 | API does not return JSON error responses (or no API detected) |

## Found and recommended

Whether an assistant can find the company by name, confirm what it is, and see it in the registries agents read. 1 check in this group does not apply to this site and is left out.

| Check | Result | Points | What Ora saw |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Brand name discoverability | Pass | 3 of 3 | zillow.com ranks #3 for "Zillow real estate marketplace" |
| Wikipedia / Wikidata entity presence | Partial | 2 of 4 | Wikidata Q8071921 (Zillow) verified - draft a Wikipedia page with cited references to complete knowledge graph coverage |
| Developer resource discoverability | Pass | 3 of 3 | Can an agent find your developer resources with the searches it would really run? We search for your API docs and expect your own docs page among the results, then for your MCP server, SDK or CLI and, when you have one, expect your own page for it. Pages on other sites, including other companies with a similar name, don't count, unless your homepage or llms.txt links that site's docs, or your homepage redirects to a parent company's site and the page's address names your product. GitHub repos count only in an org your site links to. |
| Listed in MCP registries | Fail | 0 of 1 | No bi-directionally verified MCP registry entry found. To pass, either publish the server from a package whose homepage, repository or maintainer email names your domain, get a verified Smithery listing with non-zero usage, |
| ChatGPT app listed | Fail | 0 of 2 | Not found in ChatGPT app directory |
| Registry branding | Fail | 0 of 2 | No registry branding (name, icon, description) found |
| Listed on skills.sh | Fail | 0 of 1 | No official skills self-published on skills.sh (42 community skills with potential relation to this domain found, but only self-published official skills count) |
| ARD discovery | Fail | 0 of 1 | No /.well-known/ard.json, no same-site rel="ard" link, and no legacy /.well-known/ai-catalog.json |

## The fixes worth most points

Ora attaches an estimate to each failing or partial check: how many points the site would gain by passing it. These are the 5 with the largest estimates for Zillow, with what Ora observed. The wording of each fix is Ora's job; the links go to the check in its catalog.

OpenAPI spec published

Fail, 0 of 7, about 4.7 points to gain. Ora saw: No OpenAPI/Swagger specification found

Scoped permissions

Fail, 0 of 5, about 3.4 points to gain. Ora saw: No declared OAuth scopes, security schemes, or scoped-permission documentation found

WebMCP support

Fail, 0 of 5, about 3.4 points to gain. Ora saw: No WebMCP support detected - no document.modelContext / navigator.modelContext usage found (scanned 8 of 11 same-origin script bundle(s) for modelContext registrations)

JSON error responses

Fail, 0 of 4, about 2.7 points to gain. Ora saw: API does not return JSON error responses (or no API detected)

JSON-LD structured data

Fail, 0 of 4, about 2.7 points to gain. Ora saw: No JSON-LD structured data found on homepage

## Our read

Zillow writes the most welcoming robots.txt on this list and then does not answer the door: the file allows the AI search crawlers on three of three checks, the training crawlers on both, and places no restriction on the user-triggered agents, while bot detection blocked all four of Ora's test agents at the home page. The developer side explains the C. Ora detected an MCP server behind authentication at mcp.zillow.com, a reachable GraphQL endpoint, and an OpenID Connect endpoint at auth.zillow.com, which lift the Usability layer to 30 of 66. The page that did come back carries 4,779 characters with an H1 and a heading hierarchy that skips from H1 to H6, no JSON-LD, and the only sitemap Ora found sits on the mortgage API host. A C at 48 for the most-visited US property site is an MCP server behind a wall its own policy says should be open.

## Check your own door

The scan above is free and needs no account: enter a domain at [ora.ai](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) and read the same four layers for your own site, then compare the door with the [Block Rate Report](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/block-rates/) for sites of your rank and kind. Our [guide to testing whether agents can reach your site](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/test-whether-ai-agents-can-reach-your-site/) has the curl commands for a manual check, and the [robots.txt builder](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/robots-builder/) writes a policy file from the Index. Payments did not apply to this site; a site that sells would read that layer against the [vendors at the door](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/ranking/).

[Scan your own domain on Ora](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check)

[All 360 checks](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/blog/). One company a day; corrections to [the corrections page](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/corrections/).

**

The check we recommend

[Ora](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) scans a public URL: 16 Discovery checks and 42 Access checks, read from its catalog on 2026-11-05. Its Journey sends a real agent to the site. [How to run it](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/test-whether-ai-agents-can-reach-your-site/).

**Limits.** Ora reads public URLs only, and what it records as blocked comes from its own network. It says the same scan run twice converges within a couple of points ([Ora's Deep Scan post](https://ora.ai/blog/introducing-deep-scan?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check)), and the pages we read give no repeat-scan figures. Its fixing product is behind a waitlist ([Ora's home page](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check)).

## Sources

-   [Ora's scan of zillow.com, GET /api/score (vendor)](https://ora.ai/api/score/zillow.com?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) read 2026-11-09
-   [Ora's check catalog, GET /api/checks (vendor)](https://ora.ai/api/checks?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) read 2026-11-05
-   [Zillow home page](https://www.zillow.com/) read 2026-11-09
-   [How to test whether AI agents can reach your site (this site)](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/test-whether-ai-agents-can-reach-your-site/) read 2026-11-04
-   [Ora: Deep Scan v2 (vendor)](https://ora.ai/blog/introducing-deep-scan?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) read 2026-11-05
-   [Ora home page, waitlist (vendor)](https://ora.ai/?utm_source=agentreadycrawlers.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=check) read 2026-11-05

Last reviewed 2026-11-09
