What Are Coverage Grades?
A coverage grade is the honesty label on every number we report — the one word that says how a finding was known: Confirmed, Observed, Estimated, or Not measured. A number without its grade is an opinion, and we never render one here.
Why our reports admit what they could not measure: a score you cannot tell apart from a guess is worth nothing. The whole point of a coverage grade is that a reader can always see the difference between a thing we read directly and a thing we could only infer — or could not reach at all.
A refused read is the sharpest case. When a site blocks our reader at its security layer, we measure what survives the block and record the refusal as a measured fact — never a fabricated score for a page we never read.
The Five Coverage Grades
Each finding, each pillar, each cell carries one of these — and a pillar is only as strong as its weakest input.
A direct, real read of the thing itself this scan. The evidence is in hand, and the finding says so.
Derived from real evidence we could reach — an observation, not a direct read. Labelled as an observation, never dressed up as certainty.
Inferred from related evidence and labelled as inferred. It is a reading, never presented as a measurement.
No real evidence was obtained this scan. We say so plainly, and we say what it would take to read it.
A refusal is a measured fact about a site, not a gap in our data. It is recorded as a refusal and never drawn as a zero or a low score that would read as measured-weak.
The Questions People Ask
What is a coverage grade?
A coverage grade is the label that says how a finding was known — Confirmed, Observed, Estimated, or Not measured. Every number we report carries one.
Why do your reports admit what they could not measure?
Because a score you cannot tell apart from a guess is worthless. A coverage grade lets a reader see the difference between what we read directly and what we could only infer — or could not reach — so nothing is ever overclaimed.
What happens when a site blocks the reader?
We measure what survives the block — the infrastructure and registration signals that do not need the page — and record the refusal as a measured fact. We never invent a score for a page we did not read.
The Rank Codex Report holds these grades at depth — the same honesty spine, tracked over time, so a number never drifts from what it meant.