Governance
A standard has to be challengeable.
How Brand & Signal is versioned, reviewed and disputed — stated in public so a score can be argued with on the evidence.
Version cadence
- The methodology carries a version number, currently v1.0, printed on every study and in the site footer.
- A minor version is issued when wording, anchors or evidence rules are clarified without changing what a score means.
- A major version is issued when a dimension is added, removed, reassigned between Brand and Signal, or reweighted.
- Published studies keep the version they were scored under; they are never silently re-scored.
What triggers a revision
- A change in how search engines or AI assistants retrieve, parse or cite public content.
- A change in an inherited standard — for example a new WCAG release or a schema.org vocabulary change.
- Evidence that an anchor is being read inconsistently by two reviewers across multiple studies.
- A substantiated challenge from a scored organization, a practitioner or a council member.
The Advisory Council
- The council is forming. Members are practitioners in brand, content, experience, engineering, search, AI findability and measurement.
- Selection is on discipline coverage and published work, not on commercial relationship.
- Members review methodology drafts and proposed revisions before release, and their affiliations are published.
- Council membership does not change any organization's score, including a member's own employer or clients.
Disputing a result
- Any organization may request a correction, whether or not it is a client of anyone.
- A request should name the score, the evidence relied on, and the evidence believed to be wrong or missing.
- We re-examine the evidence and respond with the outcome, whether or not the score changes.
- Confirmed factual errors are republished with a dated change note.
Any organization may request a correction. We review the evidence, and where a factual error is confirmed we republish with a dated change note. Corrections address factual accuracy only — scores cannot be purchased, negotiated or removed, and no commercial relationship changes a result.