Show HN: I scanned every YC Spring 2026 startup for what AI crawlers see
The author scanned all 197 YC Spring 2026 startups using potatometer.com to evaluate their SEO, GEO, and AEO technical setups. Most startup sites were readable by AI crawlers, but the majority did not effectively communicate their purpose to those crawlers.
Background
- Y Combinator (YC) is a famous Silicon Valley startup accelerator that invests in early-stage companies twice a year. The "YC Spring 2026 batch" refers to the cohort of startups accepted in that funding cycle.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) are techniques for making websites rank higher in traditional search engines (Google), AI-powered search engines (like ChatGPT Search, Perplexity), and voice assistants respectively. They matter because companies now compete for visibility not just in Google results but also in AI-generated answers.
- AI crawlers are bots (like OpenAI's GPTBot, Google's Google-Extended) that scan websites to train AI models or provide up-to-date information for AI chatbots. If a site isn't optimized for these crawlers, it may be invisible to AI-powered search tools.
- Potatometer is a tool that analyzes how readable and understandable a website is to AI crawlers — essentially scoring how well a site "communicates" with bots rather than just with human visitors.