Lumen Payroll: visibility and experience audit
lumenpayroll.com, audited 9 Oct 2026
Which crawlers can read the site
10 search or user-triggered agents are blocked. These are the ones that fetch pages to answer a live question. Training-only crawlers are listed but not scored: blocking training is a legitimate choice.
| Agent | Vendor | Purpose | robots.txt | Honours robots.txt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amzn-SearchBot | Amazon | search / answers | blocked | yes |
| Claude-SearchBot | Anthropic | search / answers | blocked | yes |
| Applebot | Apple | search / answers | blocked | yes |
| DuckAssistBot | DuckDuckGo | search / answers | blocked | yes |
| Googlebot | search / answers | allowed | yes | |
| bingbot | Microsoft | search / answers | blocked | yes |
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | search / answers | blocked | yes |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | search / answers | blocked | yes |
| Claude-User | Anthropic | user-triggered fetch | blocked | yes |
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | user-triggered fetch | blocked | may ignore (vendor statement) |
| Perplexity-User | Perplexity | user-triggered fetch | blocked | may ignore (vendor statement) |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | training | blocked | yes |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | training | blocked | yes |
| Google-Extended | training | allowed | yes | |
| GPTBot | OpenAI | training | blocked | yes |
llms.txt: missing. Reported for completeness only: no major AI vendor has committed to reading it and Google states it does not use it (2026).
Findings
- highmeasured
robots.txt blocks ChatGPT and Perplexity search crawlers
robots.txt has `User-agent: *` → `Disallow: /` with an Allow override only for Googlebot. OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot are blocked; GPTBot (training) is blocked too.
Why it matters: A blocked search crawler cannot cite the site in ChatGPT search or Perplexity answers. Blocking training-only bots is a legitimate choice and is not scored.
Fix: Add explicit Allow groups for the search and user-triggered agents (fix F1).
AI crawler access1 of 1 pageseffort Svaudit site-checkrobots.ai_blocked - mediummeasured
Sections open with preamble instead of the answer
On 7 of 11 pages, fewer than 40% of H2 sections state the answer in the first 60 words; the first paragraph after a heading averages 94 words.
Why it matters: Cited sentences in AI answers are 6–20 words and 75% come from the first half of a page (Bright Data, 42,971 citations).
Answer readiness7 of 11 pageseffort Mworker/answer-readinessanswer.capsule_missingAffected URLs
- https://lumenpayroll.com/pricing
- https://lumenpayroll.com/features/statutory-reporting
- https://lumenpayroll.com/blog/datev-export
- mediummeasured
Generic or duplicate page titles
3 pages titled "Lumen Payroll" only; /pricing and /pricing/startups share one title.
Titles and descriptions4 of 11 pageseffort Svaudit site-checktitle.genericAffected URLs
- https://lumenpayroll.com/pricing
- https://lumenpayroll.com/pricing/startups
- https://lumenpayroll.com/about
- mediummeasured
No Organization structured data on the home page
Home page JSON-LD contains WebSite only; no Organization, no sameAs, no logo.
Why it matters: Organization markup with sameAs links is how engines reconcile the brand with its LinkedIn, Crunchbase and Wikidata entities.
Structured data1 of 11 pageseffort Svaudit site-checkschema.no_org - infomeasured
No llms.txt
/llms.txt returns 404.
Why it matters: Informational only: 97% of llms.txt files received no AI-bot requests in May 2026 (Ahrefs) and Google states it does not use the file. Cheap to add; weighted near zero.
AI crawler accesslumenpayroll.com/llms.txteffort Svaudit site-checkllms.missing
Pages checked
| URL | Status | Title | H1 | Words | Schema |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| / | 200 | Lumen Payroll | Payroll, finally calm | 812 | WebSite |
| /pricing | 200 | Lumen Payroll | Pricing | 530 | none |
| /pricing/startups | 200 | Lumen Payroll | Startup plan | 410 | none |
| /features/statutory-reporting | 200 | Statutory reporting | Lumen Payroll | Statutory reporting | 980 | none |
| /features/datev | 200 | DATEV export | Lumen Payroll | DATEV export | 640 | none |
| /about | 200 | Lumen Payroll | About | 390 | none |
| /blog/datev-export | 200 | How to export payroll to DATEV | Lumen Payroll | How to export payroll to DATEV | 1640 | Article |
| /blog/mid-year-switch | 200 | Switching payroll mid-year | Lumen Payroll | Switching payroll providers mid-year | 1210 | Article |
| /customers | 200 | Customers | Lumen Payroll | Customers | 450 | none |
| /security | 200 | Security | Lumen Payroll | Security | 720 | none |
| /signup | 200 | Sign up | Lumen Payroll | Create your account | 140 | none |