VGO Rank v1.0 frozen standard
Formal issuance and production certificate status are shown on Rank and Status. Document version badges do not indicate issuance status.
Status: in force (includes 2026-09-30 emergency amendment). Opening production issuance is no longer blocked by first-issuance calibration gates; incomplete calibration must be disclosed honestly. Authority: vgoframework/vgo-framework@2d5bd45 (site copy includes the emergency amendment). Superseded candidates: DRAFT 0.1 and the repository v2.1 diagnosis/governance proposal.
Definition and bounds
VGO Rank (levels VR0–VR10) measures how effectively a verifiable brand or product entity is found, correctly understood, credibly presented and appropriately recommended in a stated market, language and industry question space. It is not corporate strength, product quality, revenue, a search-engine official rating or a growth guarantee.
Every rating requires scope: entity_id / entity_type / market / locale / industry / question_space_version / surface_protocol_version / window / rank_protocol_version. Brands and products are rated separately; city and national scopes are separate. Numbers from different scopes or versions must not be ranked together. A website alone is not a rating subject. Website health index (VHI) is reported separately and does not add VR points. Visits and leads are outcome checks only.
Formal levels are integers VR0–VR10. Unrated is never written as VR0. Internal score S is 0–100; certificates may show S, intervals and evidence coverage, but the public primary result is the VR level. There is no global weighted total across markets.
Sampling and surfaces (public summary)
Formal windows are 30 consecutive days with planned question opportunities across search, AI/answers and social discovery (social may be removed by market protocol). Collection failures are not entity absence. Appearance (P), correct understanding (U), credible evidence (C) and appropriate recommendation (R) are recorded separately.
Quality per opportunity: q = 0.20P + 0.30(P∧U) + 0.25(P∧U∧C) + 0.25(P∧U∧R) with published renormalization when R is not applicable. Surface weights at launch: search 35%, AI/answers 45%, social 20%. Conservative score S* is the lower bound of a fixed-seed bootstrap interval; accuracy and non-brand gates cap the level before thresholds apply.
Level thresholds (S* floor)
| Level | S* floor | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| VR0 | 0 | Eligible sample, essentially invisible |
| VR1 | 5 | Rare effective appearance |
| VR2 | 12 | Sporadic visibility |
| VR3 | 20 | Partial question coverage |
| VR4 | 30 | Early core coverage |
| VR5 | 42 | Effective across intent classes |
| VR6 | 54 | Stable core visibility |
| VR7 | 66 | Sustained multi-surface credibility |
| VR8 | 76 | High coverage and accuracy |
| VR9 | 85 | Market-leading; needs three consecutive periods |
| VR10 | 93 | Benchmark; needs six consecutive periods |
First formal release issues at most VR8. VR9/VR10 need further quarters, audit and protocol notice.
Status and certificates
unrated, provisional, rated, watch, restricted, revoked and expiry rules follow the frozen trust contract. Certificates expire after 45 days with monthly refresh. Four roles (standard, evidence, issuer, appeal) and Omseek affiliation must be disclosed. Free corrections and appeals are available without purchase or claim.
Publication / calibration
Entity queues, multi-window pilots, agreement metrics, legal review and revocation drills remain optional post-open quality work. They are not hard gates for turning on production issuance or for issuing formal Rank / rankings. Operators may open production issuance when SoftHSM (or equivalent HSM) is in place and dual-human approval is recorded. Incomplete calibration must be disclosed; do not claim first-issuance calibration acceptance if it was not completed.
Fixed public wording
VGO Rank is a VR0–VR10 rating of effective machine-mediated visibility in a stated market and question space, issued by VGO Framework under a published protocol version, with evidence coverage, validity and a correction channel. Omseek is the first application party and is affiliated with Framework. After production issuance opens, formal certificates and badges may be shown; incomplete calibration must be disclosed and must not be misrepresented as completed first-issuance acceptance.