Three terms that come up in every AI visibility conversation, explained plainly, with what each one does and doesn't do.
Structured data
Structured data is a block of schema.org markup in a page's HTML that states its facts in a fixed vocabulary: this is a Vehicle, this is its VIN, this Offer has this price, this AutoDealer is at this address. It doesn't replace readable text; it confirms it, so a machine doesn't have to guess which number on the page is the price.
llms.txt
llms.txt is a plain-text file at the root of a site that tells AI tools what the site is and where its important pages are. It's a proposed convention, not a standard every assistant reads, so it helps the tools that use it and costs nothing with the ones that don't. On its own it won't get a dealer named; it's a map, not a reason.
MCP
The Model Context Protocol is how AI agents call tools. An MCP server for your inventory lets an agent search your lot directly ("SUVs under $30,000 with third-row seating") and get back current cars with prices and links, instead of reading pages and hoping they're up to date.
Every Virtual Lot dealer has one, with a manifest at a standard address so agents can discover it.
What none of them do
None of these make an assistant recommend you. They make sure that when an assistant or agent looks, it can find and correctly read what you have. Whether you're named depends on the questions asked and the pages that answer them, which is why Virtual Lot measures that directly.