VistoFormat - robots.txt, rebuilt for AI readers

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obots.txt told crawlers how to read the web. AI reads differently — it extracts and cites. Visto Format is an open spec for structuring content so LLMs can read it, plus a BYOK tool to measure if you're actually getting cited. Spec is free and open source.

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Hi Product Hunt šŸ‘‹ For ~20 years, robots.txt told crawlers how to read the web. But AI doesn't crawl-and-rank — it extracts meaning and cites. There's no standard for that, and no way to measure if your content actually gets cited. Visto Format is my attempt at both: šŸ”“ **Visto Format (open source)** — a spec for structuring page content as "Structured Content Units": compact, self-contained facts shaped for how LLMs read. It's JSON-LD, aimed at AI extraction instead of search rich-results. MIT on GitHub. šŸ“Š **Visto Insights** — measure your actual AI citation rate. Bring your own Gemini key (BYOK); it runs your target queries and tracks whether you get cited, over time. šŸ›”ļø **Visto Shield** — honeypot tokens that log which crawlers actually read your content. The honest part: I built the measurement layer because I didn't trust my own gut — and I was right not to. On my own site, citation went 0% → 17% → 0% → 25% → 35%. AI citation is probabilistic, not a fixed score. And SEO is still the foundation: structuring for AI did little on a site Google didn't already know. It's n=1 and Gemini-only so far — I'm sharing the method as much as the results. BYOK means you pay the model provider directly; I charge a flat fee. Free tier, Starter $29/mo, Pro $79/mo.

Thank you so much to everyone who upvoted Visto Format today šŸ™

I launched this completely solo (just me + Claude Code), with zero community and zero prior audience — so every single upvote genuinely meant a lot.

Visto Format is just getting started. If you try it on your site, I'd love to hear what happens to your AI citation rate.

Thanks again for the support on day one.