# Your Home-Inspection Site Has 6,000 Reviews the AI Can't Read — Here's the Fix

Home inspectors ship the richest local-business schema in their category and still lose the AI citation. The missing layer is FAQPage, structured reviews, and three validity defects. Here's the deterministic fix.

Author: J.A. Watte
Published: May 30, 2026
Source: https://jwatte.com/blog/blog-mega-analyzer-home-inspection-readiness/

---

A homebuyer in a hurry doesn't open ten inspector websites anymore. They ask an assistant: "who's the best home inspector in [city], and what does an inspection actually cover?" The answer gets assembled from whatever the machine can *read* — the schema graph, the FAQ markup, the review data an engine can lift — not from the hero video or the badge wall.

I added a **property-inspection readiness** check to the [Mega Analyzer](/tools/mega-analyzer/) after running a stack of national franchises and strong independent home-inspection firms through the same deterministic pass an AI engine would: pull the page, parse the schema, ignore the marketing. The result was the opposite of what I see in most local-service verticals. The best inspection sites are **schema leaders** — a `HomeAndConstructionBusiness` node with a real address and phone, `Service` and `Product` nodes on every service page, `Article` markup on a deep blog, even `VideoObject`. They out-structure their entire peer set.

And then they leave the two highest-leverage things on the table.

## Miss #1: the FAQ page with no FAQPage schema

The single most common defect: a dedicated `/faq/` page with a thousand-plus words of genuine question-and-answer copy and **zero `FAQPage` markup**. The content is already written. It's already the exact shape AI Overviews and "People also ask" prefer to lift. It just isn't wrapped:

```json
{
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [{
    "@type": "Question",
    "name": "How long does a home inspection take?",
    "acceptedAnswer": {
      "@type": "Answer",
      "text": "A standard single-family inspection takes 2 to 3 hours..."
    }
  }]
}
```

Here's why it matters more for inspectors than almost anyone: in the home-inspection category, *nobody* in a typical peer set ships `FAQPage`. It's an open lane. The first firm to wrap its existing Q&A in schema doesn't reach parity — it takes a category lead on exactly the informational queries ("what does a home inspection include," "do I need a sewer scope," "is radon testing worth it") that feed the buyer funnel.

## Miss #2: thousands of five-star reviews the machine can't count

A home inspector's review corpus is its single biggest trust asset, and it is usually invisible to AI. The page says "6,000+ 5-star reviews"; the schema says nothing an engine can lift. A bare `Rating` type floating in the graph is not the same as a structured `AggregateRating` with a `ratingValue` and a `reviewCount`:

```json
"aggregateRating": {
  "@type": "AggregateRating",
  "ratingValue": "4.9",
  "reviewCount": "6128",
  "bestRating": "5"
}
```

One caveat that matters: source that number from a verifiable platform total and never inflate it. "Largest," "most-referred," and "N+ five-star reviews" are advertising claims under FTC substantiation rules, and the moment you put the count in schema, the machine-readable number carries the same burden as the visible copy.

## The three validity defects that quietly suppress rich results

The check also flags a cluster of schema-hygiene bugs I see constantly on inspection sites built on WordPress with a Rank Math or Yoast "Person or Company" toggle set wrong:

1. **The `["Person","Organization"]` dual-type.** A firm node typed as *both* a Person and an Organization is invalid — an inspection company is a `HomeAndConstructionBusiness`, not a person. Switch the global type and change the `@id` from `#person` to `#org`; the references cascade.
2. **The placeholder `Person` node.** A node typed `Person` whose `name` is a slug or a set of initials (a CMS default that leaked into production). It pollutes the firm's entity graph. Replace it with the real owner or remove it.
3. **Alt-text on the programmatic gallery.** Inspection firms that auto-generate a per-address "sample report" page for SEO often ship those photo galleries with most images missing `alt` — a WCAG 1.1.1 Level A failure that multiplies across every generated page and is the most common image defect in ADA web demand letters against local service businesses.

## The credential layer AI actually verifies

Many states — Colorado among them — don't license home inspectors, so **association membership is the credential.** The check looks for an `InterNACHI` or `ASHI` membership statement and the find-an-inspector profile in the firm's `sameAs`, an E&O / general-liability line, `NRPP`/`AARST` certification on radon pages, and — for any market that *does* license inspectors, like Texas through TREC — the license number disclosed on that market's pages. These are the links an answer engine traverses to confirm you're a real, certified inspector and not a lead-gen shell.

None of this is a rebuild. It's a `FAQPage` wrapper around copy you already wrote, an `AggregateRating` sourced from a number you already earned, three template fixes, and a credential line. Run your own site through the [Mega Analyzer](/tools/mega-analyzer/) and the [Schema Validator](/tools/schema-validator/), and check the gallery pages with the [WCAG Accessibility Audit](/tools/wcag-accessibility-audit/).

## Fact-check notes and sources

- **FAQPage / rich results behavior:** Google [structured data for FAQ](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/faqpage) and the [AggregateRating / Review snippet guidance](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/review-snippet).
- **FTC substantiation of advertising claims:** the FTC's [advertising FAQ](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-faqs-guide-small-business) and the [Endorsement Guides](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking) (claims and review/testimonial substantiation).
- **WCAG 1.1.1 (non-text content, Level A):** [Understanding SC 1.1.1](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/non-text-content.html). ADA Title III web-litigation context: DOJ [web accessibility guidance, March 2022](https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance/).
- **Inspector credentials:** [InterNACHI](https://www.nachi.org/) Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics; radon proficiency via [NRPP/AARST](https://nrpp.info/). State licensing varies — Texas licenses inspectors via [TREC](https://www.trec.texas.gov/); Colorado does not license home inspectors.

## Related reading

- [The Mega Analyzer methodology](/tools/mega-analyzer/) — how the deterministic pass works
- [Schema Validator](/tools/schema-validator/) — catch the dual-type and parse errors
- [WCAG Accessibility Audit](/tools/wcag-accessibility-audit/) — the gallery alt-text scan
- [AI Citation Readiness](/tools/ai-citation-readiness/) — is your content answer-shaped?

*This post is informational, not legal or compliance advice. Substantiate every superlative and review-count claim, and route advertising language past counsel where needed. Mentions of third-party organizations are nominative fair use; no affiliation is implied.*


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