AI visibility of Dunedin hairdressers: the data.
We audited 23 hairdressers’ websites in Dunedin. The average AI-visibility score is 63/100: 0% block at least one AI search crawler and 35% have no structured data — meaning ChatGPT and Google’s AI often can’t read the businesses they’re asked to recommend.
avg score
63/100
block AI crawlers
0%
no structured data
35%
JS-only content
9%
As of July 2026, the average AI-visibility score of 23 audited hairdressers’ websites in Dunedin, New Zealand is 63 out of 100. 0% of the audited sites block at least one AI search crawler (such as OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot) in their robots.txt, 35% publish no structured data identifying their business, 9% serve their main content only through JavaScript that AI crawlers cannot execute, and 83% show no visible “last updated” date. The businesses were drawn from Google’s local results for hairdresser services in Dunedin, where the average Google rating is 4.7 stars with a median of 78 reviews. Source: Surfaced audit dataset, n=23, July 2026. Method: surfaced.co.nz/methodology.
What are Dunedin hairdressers getting wrong?
83% show no visible 'last updated' date
The fix: Display and maintain a visible update date — AI engines strongly favour recently-updated pages.
35% have no structured data at all
The fix: Add LocalBusiness JSON-LD so AI engines can identify the business, its services and its area.
9% serve their content only via JavaScript
The fix: Server-render the key pages — AI crawlers don't run JavaScript, so a JS-only site reads as a blank page.
0% block at least one AI search crawler
The fix: Allow OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Bingbot and Googlebot in robots.txt — training-only bots can stay blocked without losing citations.
Why does this matter for a hairdresser in Dunedin?
When someone in Dunedin asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity for “a good hairdresser near me”, the engines recommend from the businesses they can actually read and verify. With an average score of 63/100, most of the local market is effectively invisible to those answers — which means the few businesses that fix their basics take a disproportionate share of AI recommendations. That gap is the opportunity.
Compare: the national average for hairdressers is 66/100 across 209 sites.
Are you one of the visible ones?
Run the exact same audit on your own site — free, 20 seconds, no signup. You’ll see your score against the Dunedin average of 63.
Check my siteLast updated July 2026 · based on 23 audited websites from 30 local listings · methodology · aggregates only — no individual business is named without consent