Grounding Page Standard 2.0: what changes

What this is about

A grounding page is a page with the checked facts about a company, a person or a product. When AI search answers a question, it pulls in current sources from the web, which is called grounding. The page is meant to help it recognise your business and attribute its facts correctly.

The standard is maintained by the Grounding Page Project, an open initiative. The concept comes from Hanns Kronenberg. It is a community standard. The project's FAQ says: "No provider has committed to taking the Grounding Page Standard into account."

What version 1.7 brought in October

Version 1.7 came out on 9 October. Since then, a person has to check and approve every grounding page before it is published. The review covered six points: accuracy, currency, sources, the right entity, matching facts in text and code, and approval.

Who reviewed the page and when is shown on the page itself. The code carries the same details in the fields reviewedBy and lastReviewed. According to the changelog, only a date with a documented review counts as a review date.

What version 2.0 adds

Version 2.0 gives every requirement a fixed identifier, such as P-1 to P-16 for page quality. It also adds a new set of rules called Reference Integrity, which is about getting a page's references right. The specification lists seven rules:

• RI-1: Every entity described gets a fixed, absolute identifier in the code (@id). It stays the same over time, in every language and on every page you control.
• RI-2: If several of your own pages describe the same company, exactly one of them is the reference anchor. The others link to it.
• RI-3: Every sameAs entry points to a page about exactly this company. Articles, studies and reviews about it do not belong there.
• RI-4: Anything listed under sameAs or as an identifier in the code also appears visibly on the page.
• RI-5: Readers can tell which references come from the company itself and which come from others.
• RI-6: The human review gains a seventh point: the references.
• RI-7: Every discrepancy falls into one of four cases:
  • wrong attribution
  • an outdated or wrong statement of your own
  • a contradiction with an independent source
  • a contradiction that only looks like one
  The changelog is explicit that removing an independent source because it disagrees is not a resolution.

According to the changelog, a suitable About, brand or product page is enough to serve as the reference anchor.

The scope is narrower, too. The standard now applies only to pages whose publisher controls both the content and the code. Platform profiles and collaboratively edited works fall outside it.

In 1.7, a footer link was one of the steps for building the page. In 2.0 it has become a recommendation. The page should be reachable through the normal navigation: the footer, a facts overview or links in the text.

What stays the same

Pages built to versions 1.6 and 1.7 remain valid. According to the changelog, moving to 2.0 is optional and only adds to what was there. Schema, ontology and thresholds stay as they were. The project has paused issuing new certificates ("Grounding Star") for now.

What you should do

Nothing, today. We also know of no independent measurement showing that a grounding page improves AI answers. If you don't have such a page, version 2.0 is no reason to build one.

A factual page with documented facts about your business still helps people and machines alike. A thorough About page is often enough.

If you already have such a page, include the references in your next review. Open every linked profile and check that it really shows your business. We would recommend this part of 2.0 regardless of the standard.

Our guide Build and check a grounding page walks you through it step by step. Our own facts page shows what it looks like for us.