# USA Today: 51 point Door Gap
- Site: usatoday.com
- Scanned: 2026-09-10
- Scan type: Basic scan
- Business type: content
- Report: https://www.seconddoor.io/r/usatoday-4nkstc
- Scanner version: 48
- Scanner release: 827acc8
- Scoring methodology: 1
- Evidence schema: 1
1 human and 3 agent dimensions measured from the pages checked; remaining dimensions are not scored.
## Scores
| Measure | Score |
| --- | --- |
| Humans | 90/100 (1/4 dimensions) |
| Agents | 39/100 (3/6 dimensions) |
| Composite | 65/100 |
| Door Gap | 51 points |
The human score is the mean of the measured human dimensions, the agent score the mean of the measured agent dimensions, and the Door Gap the difference between them.
## What the machine actually did
The scanner recorded successful observations for 6 of 13 checks, but could not find out whether machines are welcome. It came up empty on 6 other checks too.
- ok      reach the site at all
- missing find out whether machines are welcome
- ok      ask whether the door opens for requests carrying the AI crawlers' names
- missing read the site's own guide for language models
- ok      find out what pages exist
- ok      find a contact route for machines
- missing find an MCP manifest at the standard paths checked
- missing find an agent plugin manifest
- missing find out whether verified agents are recognised
- ok      read the homepage as data rather than as a page
- missing find a machine readable API spec
- missing read the developer documentation
- ok      walk the way a visitor would, to a signup form or a product
## What a visitor meets
1. **Entry observation** (observed). The homepage links directly to 31 articles or stories checked by this scan. No subscription, sign-in or payment was attempted.
## Top issues
1. **No valid llms.txt was identified at the site root.** (machine_discoverability)
The evidence and the recommended fix for each are on the report page: https://www.seconddoor.io/r/usatoday-4nkstc
## Files generated from this scan
- **robots.txt rules for AI crawlers** at `/robots.txt`, 10 minutes, no developer needed. Verify: The next scan reads robots.txt and finds every search and agent crawler allowed, none of them kept off product or pricing paths.
- **llms.txt** at `/llms.txt`, 15 minutes, no developer needed. Verify: The next scan fetches /llms.txt as text and the llms.txt check passes.
Each file is written from what this scan found on the site. The content is in the JSON once the evidence is opened: https://www.seconddoor.io/api/reports/usatoday-4nkstc
## The agent door
- **machine_discoverability** 32/100. Robots.txt blocks 6 of the crawlers that fetch pages to answer a buyer. Robots.txt blocks 7 training crawlers, a choice about model weights rather than about buyers. On its first visit, our browser read the homepage.
- **programmatic_onboarding** not measured. Not applicable to this scanned surface.
- **pricing_legibility** not measured. Not applicable to this scanned surface.
- **agent_aware_instrumentation** 0/100. No MCP manifest was identified at the discovery paths checked. 6 retrieval or agent crawler names are disallowed in robots.txt.
- **machine_fetchable_trust** 85/100. Security.txt is published with a contact route. The homepage answers automated requests.
- **commercial_rails** not measured. Not applicable to this scanned surface.
## The human door
- **steps_to_first_value** 90/100. The article or story catalogue was reached in 1 step from the homepage; subscription, sign-in and payment were not tested.
- **required_fields** not measured. Not applicable to this scanned surface.
- **verification_walls** not measured. Not applicable to this scanned surface.
- **error_recovery** not measured. Not applicable to this scanned surface.
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Scored by SecondDoor. Method: https://www.seconddoor.io/methodology
Scan another site: https://www.seconddoor.io
Rate an issue or this report: POST https://www.seconddoor.io/api/feedback, or the rate_fix tool on https://www.seconddoor.io/api/mcp