rickcase.com — AI Site Grade

Analysis

Akamai Blocks All Major AI Crawlers While Allowing Anthropic — A Selective Gate

The site's Akamai WAF returns 403 to every major AI crawler tested (GPTBot, Google-Extended, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User) while the anthropic-ai user-agent receives a 200 with 301KB of real HTML served from the Dealer.com nginx backend. This is not a robots.txt issue — it is a WAF-level bot detection policy that accidentally permits one AI crawler while blocking all others.

Crawler Access

The robots.txt (accessible only via anthropic-ai UA) contains explicit Disallow rules for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot, and PerplexityBot — but only for /api/, /apis/, /pixall/, and static asset paths. The homepage and content pages are not disallowed in the robots.txt for these bots. However, the Akamai WAF blocks them at the edge before they ever reach the robots.txt file, returning a generic "Access Denied" page. The llms.txt file returns 403 for all UAs — it does not exist. The sitemap.xml (15KB, ~80 URLs) is also blocked by Akamai for non-anthropic-ai UAs, though it lists content pages with lastmod dates of 2026-05-30, suggesting automated future-dated timestamps from the Dealer.com CMS.

Content & Schema

The homepage title reads "Rick Case Auto Group | New Acura, Volkswagen, Audi, FIAT, Mazda, Genesis, Alfa Romeo, Hyundai, Honda Dealership in , " — the city/state fields are empty, producing a trailing comma. The site is a multi-franchise Dealer.com template serving 11+ brands across Florida and Georgia. The about page (/dealership/about.htm) and memorial page (/in-memory-rick-case-1942-2020.htm) exist with index, follow meta directives. No JSON-LD schema was detected on any fetched page — no AutoDealer, Organization, or LocalBusiness markup. The blog (/blog/index.htm) and "Cares" page (/cares.htm) both share the same <title> of "Blog Post List | Rick Case Auto Group", indicating a CMS template issue.

Cold-Knowledge Gap

The LLM model knows Rick Case Automotive Group as a large privately held dealership chain founded in the 1970s, with Honda and Hyundai as core brands, and mentions a 2023 class-action lawsuit alleging deceptive pricing. The site itself contains zero mention of any lawsuit, legal proceedings, or pricing controversies. The memorial page for founder Rick Case (1942-2020) and a "special message from Rick & Rita" page suggest the site has not been updated to reflect the founder's passing in a prominent way — the homepage still lists "Rick Case Auto Group" without acknowledging the transition.

External Signals

The site runs on Dealer.com (ns1.dealer.com, ns2.dealer.com) with Akamai CDN. DNS records show Microsoft 365 mail (rickcase-com.mail.protection.outlook.com) and ConnectWise SPF records. No external search results were returned for the domain or brand name — the Akamai WAF blocks indexing crawlers so effectively that Google, Bing, and other search engines likely cannot index the site's content. The wayback machine shows a snapshot exists, confirming the site has been accessible historically.

Findings

1. Akamai WAF blocks all major AI crawlers except Anthropic High

   The Akamai WAF returns 403 to GPTBot, Google-Extended, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot, and ChatGPT-User, while allowing anthropic-ai with a 200 response. This prevents most AI crawlers from accessing the site.

   What to change: Reconfigure the Akamai WAF to allow all major AI crawlers (GPTBot, Google-Extended, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User) to access the site, matching the access granted to anthropic-ai.

2. Robots.txt blocked by Akamai for most AI crawlers High

   The robots.txt file returns 403 for non-anthropic-ai UAs, preventing crawlers from reading crawl directives. The file itself only disallows /api/, /apis/, /pixall/, and static assets for those bots, but the WAF blocks them before they can read it.

   What to change: Ensure robots.txt is accessible to all crawlers by removing the WAF block on that path, or serve a static robots.txt from a CDN that is not subject to bot detection.

3. Sitemap.xml blocked by Akamai for non-Anthropic crawlers High

   The sitemap.xml (15KB, ~80 URLs) returns 403 for most AI crawlers, preventing discovery of site content. The sitemap lists lastmod dates of 2026-05-30, suggesting automated future-dated timestamps.

   What to change: Allow all crawlers to access sitemap.xml by adjusting the WAF policy, and correct the lastmod dates to reflect actual update times.

4. llms.txt file missing (403) Medium

   The llms.txt file returns 403 for all user agents, indicating it does not exist or is blocked. This file is a standard way to guide AI crawlers to key content.

   What to change: Create an llms.txt file listing important pages (e.g., about, inventory, contact) and serve it with a 200 status.

5. No JSON-LD schema detected on any page High

   No structured data markup (AutoDealer, Organization, LocalBusiness) was found on any fetched page. This limits the site's ability to appear in rich results and AI knowledge panels.

   What to change: Add JSON-LD structured data for AutoDealer, Organization, and LocalBusiness to all relevant pages, including name, address, phone, and opening hours.

6. Homepage title has empty city/state fields Medium

   The homepage title reads 'Rick Case Auto Group | New Acura, Volkswagen, Audi, FIAT, Mazda, Genesis, Alfa Romeo, Hyundai, Honda Dealership in , ' with trailing comma due to empty city/state fields.

   What to change: Populate the city and state fields in the CMS template to produce a complete title, e.g., 'Rick Case Auto Group | New ... Dealership in Fort Lauderdale, FL'.

7. Blog and Cares pages share identical title Medium

   The blog index page and the 'Cares' page both have the title 'Blog Post List | Rick Case Auto Group', indicating a CMS template issue that creates duplicate titles.

   What to change: Assign unique titles to each page; for example, 'Rick Case Cares | Rick Case Auto Group' for the Cares page.

8. No external search results for domain or brand High

   Web searches for 'rickcase.com' and 'Rick Case Automotive Group' returned zero results, indicating the site is not indexed by search engines due to the WAF blocking crawlers.

   What to change: Allow search engine crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot) through the WAF to enable indexing, and submit the sitemap to Google Search Console.

9. Site omits mention of class-action lawsuit Medium

   The LLM knowledge base references a 2023 class-action lawsuit alleging deceptive pricing, but the site contains no mention of any legal proceedings, creating a gap between public knowledge and site content.

   What to change: Consider adding a page or statement addressing the lawsuit to provide transparency and align with external information.

10. Homepage does not acknowledge founder's passing Low

    The memorial page for founder Rick Case (1942-2020) exists, but the homepage still presents 'Rick Case Auto Group' without any indication of leadership transition, potentially confusing visitors.

    What to change: Update the homepage or about page to acknowledge the founder's legacy and current ownership, e.g., 'Founded by Rick Case (1942-2020), now led by...'

What's working

• Anthropic AI crawler receives full access — The anthropic-ai user-agent gets a 200 response with full HTML content, allowing Claude to index the site's pages.
• Robots.txt does not disallow content pages for AI bots — The robots.txt file only disallows /api/, /apis/, /pixall/, and static assets for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, etc., leaving the homepage and content pages crawlable (if the WAF allowed them).
• Sitemap.xml exists with ~80 URLs — A sitemap.xml file is present and lists approximately 80 URLs, providing a roadmap for crawlers (if accessible).
• About and memorial pages have index, follow directives — The about page and in-memory page include meta directives allowing indexing and link following, which is positive for SEO.
• Wayback Machine has historical snapshot — A Wayback Machine snapshot from 2026-03-14 confirms the site has been historically accessible, indicating it is not a new domain.