Evidence standard
No score exists without a named, checkable source.
Every number published by Brand & Signal traces back to something a reader can fetch, reproduce or check independently. This page states the rule and what happens when the evidence is not there.
What counts as evidence
- A fetchable URL, captured with the date it was retrieved.
- An observable behaviour that can be reproduced by a third party following the stated steps.
- A machine-readable artefact — markup, headers, sitemap, structured data — recorded as retrieved.
- An independent source outside the organization's control, for anything described as corroborated.
What does not count
- Reputation, familiarity or the analyst's prior impression of the organization.
- A model's unsourced summary of a brand, used as a finding rather than as an observation about the model.
- Private data supplied by the organization that a reader could not verify.
- Inference about what is probably true behind a login or a paywall.
When evidence is missing
- The limitation is recorded with the result rather than inferred around.
- The dimension is scored on what is observable, and the missing surface is named in the report.
- Where too little is observable to score a dimension, it is reported as not assessable, not as zero.
Calibration against inflation
- Anchors for 3, 5, 7 and 9 are published on every dimension page, so a score is defined before it is given.
- Scores are checked against the distribution of published studies; a study that drifts high is re-anchored before release.
- A second reviewer re-scores a sample of every study without seeing the first set of scores.
- Where the two disagree by more than one point, the dimension is re-evidenced and the anchor language is reviewed.
Inherited, not invented.
Every dimension traces to a named discipline standard, cited on the page.
Evidenced, not asserted.
Every score traces to a fetchable source. Anti-inflation calibration is published in the methodology.
Whole-surface, not siloed.
Brand truth and machine truth scored together — the Signal Gap is the number nobody else produces.