The Virginia Public Access Project

The Virginia Public Access Project, based in Richmond, VA, describes itself simply: "The Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) is a nonprofit that connects Virginians with nonpartisan data on campaign finance, elections, and state government." To AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity it is one of the more visible businesses we measure, scoring 7.0 out of 10.

On the page itself the strengths are clear: a clear heading structure, crawler access and the files AI engines look for and sitemaps and entity links AI can follow. It is passable on a partly stated business identity and a few credibility markers. What holds it back is structured data describing the business.

Away from its own site, other sites link to it, AI engines recognise it as a distinct business, it turns up in press coverage and it comes up on Reddit. There is some, but not much, sign that the domain is only lightly established. Beyond that, nobody is discussing it where AI engines look.

AI crawlers have visited 8 times in our tracking, including GPTBot (ChatGPT), ClaudeBot (Anthropic) and Meta AI. It does link out to several social profiles, which helps engines tie the brand together. The business dates to 1997.