Definition
Machine-readable content is content that exposes enough structure for software to determine what the page is, what it covers, and how it relates to the rest of the site.
That structure can come from routes, taxonomy, schema, field naming, heading logic, and public endpoint files that echo the same underlying content model.
In Practice
A glossary term with a named collection, a stable URL, related terms, and matching public JSON data is machine-readable in a way a loose blog post is not.
The goal is not to write for robots. It is to remove ambiguity from the page architecture.
Worth Knowing
Machine-readable does not mean unreadable to humans. The best implementation usually improves clarity for both audiences.
The structure needs to stay aligned over time, which is why shared source data matters.