Evidence
What backs every test
An evidence label and graded sources for each of the 72 tests, with the date each is next re-read, and the map from Index 11 to Index 12.
On this page
How to read the evidence
Every test carries one evidence label, and every source it cites carries a grade. Together they say how far a reader should lean on a test, and they decide whether it carries points.
Evidence labels
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| AI product | A named AI product or agent is documented using it. The operator's own documentation says so. |
| Search index | Documented for Google or Bing, not for an AI product. Google's own guide says no special markup is needed for its AI features, so this is weaker than it looks. |
| Standard only | A published standard or draft with no documented consumer. |
| None found | No source found either way. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the test says so. |
| Practice | Sound practice with no documented consumer. It is good for people, and no AI company documents using it. |
| Scanner-listed | A published scanner checks it (Cloudflare's Agent Readiness score, Lighthouse's agentic browsing category) and no AI product is documented using it. A scanner measures; it is not a reader. Shown and never scored. |
A label may carry a short parenthetical that narrows it, such as (coding agents only). The parenthetical is part of the claim: a test credited for coding agents is not credited for search crawlers.
Source grades
| Grade | Meaning |
|---|---|
| A | Operator or standards-body documentation, read directly from the source. |
| B | An independent measurement or study, or a vendor's own data. |
| C | A single blog or a third-party directory. |
A scored test must not rest on a grade C source alone. A source whose address or date could not be confirmed is marked so in the test's Sources line.
Policy
- A test is scored only if it has documented use. That means the AI product or Search index label, or the Practice label, which is scored at one point and shown as Practice. A test labeled Standard only, Scanner-listed or None found is measured and shown in Posture, Extras or Measurement, and is worth no points. A site that does it is credited in words and is never marked down for not doing it.
- Every test carries a review date six months out. The date is on the test's Review by line: 2027-04-18 for the tests as published in 12.0. A test is also re-read when a source it cites moves, changes or disappears, and it is changed if the reading changed.
- A label that moves a test into or out of the score is a change to the score, and follows Versioning and change control. A corrected citation or a reworded question is a minor change.
The register
| Test | Question | Evidence | Pts | Sources | Review by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RCH-1 | Can the AI tools that search the web read your site? | AI product | 8 | 5 | 2027-04-18 |
| RCH-2 | Does your website let those crawlers in, or does your security turn them away? | AI product | 12 | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| RCH-3 | Does each page say which web address is the real one? | Search index | 2 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| RCH-4 | Do your page settings let assistants quote you? | AI product | 3 | 4 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-1 | Is your page's text in the page itself, without needing JavaScript? | AI product | 10 | 4 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-2 | Is the text behind tabs and 'read more' buttons already on the page? | AI product | 5 | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-3 | Can a crawler trust the 'last changed' dates in your sitemap? | AI product | 2 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-4 | Do your filters and calendars keep a crawler from getting lost? | Search index | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-5 | Do your PDFs and images have their own rules for search and quoting? | Search index | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-6 | Do missing pages say they are missing? | Search index | 1 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-7 | Do your redirects go straight to the right page? | Search index | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-8 | Do you have sitemaps for your images and videos? | Search index | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-9 | Can a crawler reach page two, three and beyond without clicking a button? | Search index | 1 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-10 | Do you offer a plain-text (Markdown) copy of your pages? | AI product | 2 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-11 | Does each page tell machines where its Markdown copy is? | AI product | 1 | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-12 | If a machine asks for Markdown, does your site give it? | AI product coding agents | 2 | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-13 | Is the page built from real page parts, like header, main and navigation? | Practice | 1 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-14 | Do your headings follow in order, starting from one main heading? | Practice | 1 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-15 | Are your tables real tables, with header cells? | Practice | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-16 | Does every section heading have a link that will not change? | Practice | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-17 | Do your images have descriptions for people who cannot see them? | Practice | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-18 | Are your key facts written as text, not only inside images or PDFs? | Practice | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| RED-19 | Does each page give its answer near the top? | Practice | 1 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-1 | Does your site say clearly who you are? | Search index | 2 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-2 | Does your site use the page labels that search engines still read for what you publish? | Search index | 3 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-3 | Do the prices and availability in your page code match what the page shows? | Search index | 3 | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-4 | Does each article show who wrote it, with a page about the author? | Search index | 2 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-5 | Does the author label in your page code point to that person? | Search index | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-6 | Are your published and updated dates honest and visible? | AI product | 6 | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-7 | Does each page show where it sits in your site? | Search index | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-8 | Does your hidden page code say the same thing as the visible text? | Search index | 1 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-9 | If a page is behind a paywall, does it say so? | AI product | 2 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-10 | Does your page code link to your official profiles elsewhere? | Search index | 2 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| UND-11 | Does your page code pass a validity check? | Search index | 2 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| ACT-1 | Can an AI agent tell what each form field is for? | AI product | 5 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| ACT-2 | Can an AI agent browse and search without hitting a CAPTCHA? | AI product | 3 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| ACT-3 | If you have a public API, is it described in a standard file? | AI product narrow | 2 | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| ACT-4 | Do your buttons, links and menus have names an AI agent can read? | AI product | 5 | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| PST-1 | Which AI training crawlers have you allowed or blocked? | AI product | – | 7 | 2027-04-18 |
| PST-2 | Have you posted a Content Signals statement about what AI may do with your content? | None found | – | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| PST-3 | Have you published a license for AI use of your content? | Standard only | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| PST-4 | Have you reserved your text and data mining rights in a form machines can read? | Standard only | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| PST-5 | Do your statements about AI use agree with each other? | None found | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| PST-6 | Is your site switched on for Google's AI answers? | AI product | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-1 | Do you publish an llms.txt file for coding assistants? | AI product coding agents only | – | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-2 | Do you list your APIs and agent tools where agents look for them? | Standard only | – | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-3 | If you run your own crawler or agent, do you publish its signing keys? | Standard only | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-4 | Can an AI assistant connect to your site as a tool? | AI product you add it | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-5 | Is your page code one connected description of your organization? | Standard only | – | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-6 | Is your page code generated from your content rather than typed by hand? | None found | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-7 | If you run real question-and-answer pages, are they marked as such? | Search index | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-8 | Does sensitive content, like health, legal or money advice, name who reviewed it? | None found | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-9 | Does your page code point to the sources you cite? | None found | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-10 | Do your images carry proof of where they came from? | Search index narrow | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-11 | Have you marked the part of a page that answers a spoken question? | Standard only | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-12 | Do you tell search engines the moment a page changes? | Search index | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-13 | Can an assistant ask your site a question directly? | Standard only | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-14 | Does your site offer its actions to AI browsers as tools? | Scanner-listed Lighthouse and Cloudflare | – | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-15 | Can an AI agent find out how to sign in to your site? | Scanner-listed Cloudflare | – | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-16 | Do you publish a card or a skills list for the agents you run? | Scanner-listed Cloudflare | – | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-17 | Do you list your agents in your domain's DNS records? | Scanner-listed Cloudflare | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-18 | Do you tell AI shoppers how they can pay? | Scanner-listed Cloudflare | – | 3 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-19 | Does robots.txt say where your sitemap is? | Scanner-listed Cloudflare | – | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| EXT-20 | Can an AI browser see the controls on your page? | Scanner-listed Lighthouse | – | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| MSR-1 | Can people finish key tasks without relying on JavaScript-only clicks? | AI product | – | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| MSR-2 | Can you count visits that come from AI assistants? | AI product | – | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
| MSR-3 | Do you keep your crawler logs long enough to use them? | Practice | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| MSR-4 | Do you get a regular report on AI crawler visits? | Practice | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| MSR-5 | Do you ask AI assistants the same questions every month and keep the answers? | None found | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| MSR-6 | Have you measured how accurately an AI reads your page? | None found | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| MSR-7 | Are you set up in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and do you read their AI reports? | AI product | – | 1 | 2027-04-18 |
| MSR-8 | Does your page hold still while it loads? | Scanner-listed Lighthouse | – | 2 | 2027-04-18 |
The crosswalk from Index 11
An Index 11 ID never stops resolving. Every one maps here to what it became, and a retired test keeps its row so that “what happened to AIR-1.5” has an answer. 14 tests in Index 12 have no predecessor.
| Index 11 | Became in Index 12 |
|---|---|
| AIR-1.1 | RCH-1, PST-1 not scored |
| AIR-1.2 | RCH-2 |
| AIR-1.3 | RCH-2 |
| AIR-1.4 | PST-2 not scored |
| AIR-1.5 | Retired |
| AIR-1.6 | RCH-4 |
| AIR-1.7 | RCH-3 |
| AIR-1.8 | RED-13 |
| AIR-1.9 | RED-14 |
| AIR-1.10 | EXT-1 not scored |
| AIR-1.11 | EXT-5 not scored |
| AIR-1.12 | UND-10 |
| AIR-1.13 | UND-1 |
| AIR-2.1 | RED-1 |
| AIR-2.2 | RED-2 |
| AIR-2.3 | RED-15 |
| AIR-2.4 | RED-16 |
| AIR-2.5 | RED-17 |
| AIR-2.6 | RED-18 |
| AIR-3.1 | EXT-6 not scored |
| AIR-3.2 | UND-7 |
| AIR-3.3 | UND-2 |
| AIR-3.4 | EXT-7 not scored |
| AIR-3.5 | UND-9 |
| AIR-3.6 | UND-3 |
| AIR-3.7 | Retired |
| AIR-3.8 | UND-11 |
| AIR-4.1 | PST-3 not scored |
| AIR-4.2 | PST-3 not scored |
| AIR-4.3 | EXT-3 not scored |
| AIR-4.4 | RED-5 |
| AIR-4.5 | RED-6 |
| AIR-4.6 | RED-7 |
| AIR-4.7 | RED-4 |
| AIR-4.8 | RED-3 |
| AIR-4.9 | RED-8 |
| AIR-4.10 | RED-9 |
| AIR-5.1 | UND-4 |
| AIR-5.2 | UND-5 |
| AIR-5.3 | EXT-8 not scored |
| AIR-5.4 | UND-6 |
| AIR-5.5 | EXT-9 not scored |
| AIR-5.6 | EXT-10 not scored |
| AIR-6.1 | ACT-3 |
| AIR-6.2 | EXT-2 not scored |
| AIR-6.3 | ACT-1 |
| AIR-6.4 | ACT-2 |
| AIR-7.1 | RED-10 |
| AIR-7.2 | RED-11 |
| AIR-7.3 | RED-12 |
| AIR-7.4 | RED-12 |
| LI-1 | Retired |
| LI-2 | EXT-11 not scored |
| LI-3 | EXT-12 not scored |
| LI-4 | Retired |
| LI-5 | EXT-13 not scored |
| LI-6 | EXT-4 not scored |
| LI-7 | EXT-1 not scored |
| BP-1 | MSR-1 not scored |
| BP-2 | Retired |
| BP-3 | MSR-2 not scored |
| BP-4 | Retired |
| BP-5 | MSR-3 not scored |
| BP-6 | MSR-4 not scored |
| BP-7 | MSR-5 not scored |
| BP-8 | MSR-6 not scored |
| BP-9 | MSR-7 not scored |
New in Index 12: RED-19, UND-8, ACT-4, PST-4, PST-5, PST-6, EXT-14, EXT-15, EXT-16, EXT-17, EXT-18, EXT-19, EXT-20, MSR-8.