Payment is not qualification
Awards are earned through evaluation results—not purchased. A paid evaluation receives analysis and recommendations regardless of award outcome.
Versioned scoring and award thresholds
Category weights, normalization rules, blocking conditions, and award thresholds are versioned as policy 2026.1. Award thresholds (overall score / 100): • Merit Award: ≥ 80 and < 90 • Excellence Award: ≥ 90 and < 95 • Site of Distinction: ≥ 95 • Evaluated only: < 80, or any score when a blocking condition applies A completed payment purchases evaluation work (capture, measurement, review, report). It does not purchase Merit, Excellence, or Distinction. Historical reports and public profiles remain tied to the policy version used at calculation time. Threshold or weight changes are published on the methodology changelog and apply only to evaluations started after the new version takes effect.
Blocking conditions
Awards may be withheld despite a qualifying score when evidence is incomplete, when malware or deceptive patterns are detected, when critical accessibility failures block primary flows under our checks, or when manual review cannot resolve a low-confidence result without altering evidence. The evaluation and recommendations are still delivered.
Manual review
Low-confidence or ambiguous results can be marked for manual review. Publication may require approval. Manual review cannot be used to sell, guarantee, or upgrade recognition.
Revocation and expiry
A verification record displays its current status. Revocation requires a reason and an immutable admin audit-log entry. Embeddable badges must resolve to the live verification URL; revoked or expired records must not present as an active award.