# GDR-002-C01 — Correction 001: §7 describes a state the site is not in
**Correction to a frozen Governance Decision Record**
**Programme:** PTODA Global Digital Authority Benchmark Series — C01 AI Crawler Access Study
**Raised:** 2026-08-27
**Status:** OPEN — logged, not resolved. No figure has been changed on the basis of this record.

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## 1. What GDR-002 §7 states

> **v1.5 pages become the canonical C01 research pages** at the canonical URLs: US, AU
> (new), GB, SG, and the cross-market flagship.

GDR-002 is dated 2026-06-29 and its status line reads *"FROZEN — decided and in effect,
2026-06-29."* Read plainly, §7 asserts that the transition described has been carried out.

## 2. What the site actually does

For **AU** and the **cross-market flagship**, §7 holds. Both are genuine v1.5 pages.

For **US, GB and SG** it does not. Measured 2026-08-25 and re-confirmed 2026-08-27 against
the live site, which is byte-identical to the working tree:

| Canonical URL | JSON-LD `measurementTechnique` | Headline in body | Denominator |
|---|---|---|---|
| `/research/ai-crawler-access-us` | C01 Crawler Methodology **v1.2** | 42.2% | 619 |
| `/research/ai-crawler-access-gb` | C01 Crawler Methodology **v1.2** | 38.8% | 536 |
| `/research/ai-crawler-access-sg` | C01 Crawler Methodology **v1.2** | 33.3% | 174 |

Each of the three carries an interim banner added 2026-06-29 reading *"v1.5 headline
published · page detail refreshing … this page's full detail is being refreshed from the
binary v1.2 presentation."* All three are indexable and all three are in `sitemap.xml`.

So the canonical C01 research pages for three of four markets are v1.2 documents, and the
v1.5 figures for those markets exist on exactly one page — the flagship.

## 3. This is a recorded interim state, not an accident

`_internal/VERSION.txt` (site v1.4, 2026-06-29) says so twice:

> `+ INTERIM: canonical US/GB/SG pages carry a "v1.5 headline published, detail refreshing"
> banner. Full country-page refresh of US/GB/SG is the next pass.`

> `NEXT PASS (not in this build): Full v1.5 country-page refresh for US, GB, SG (replacing
> the binary v1.2 presentation with the five-class detail, removing the interim banner).`

**The defect is therefore in GDR-002, not in the build.** The build did what VERSION.txt
says it did. GDR-002 §7 states the outcome of a transition that VERSION.txt simultaneously
records as incomplete, and GDR-002 is the document a reader is directed to for the
authoritative account — it is linked from the version-history page and from every
superseded banner.

## 4. Why this is logged rather than quietly fixed

Editing §7 to describe the current state would make the record agree with the site by
rewriting the decision, which is the failure GDR-002 §6 exists to prevent: *"Erasing v1.2
would be a silent rewrite of the published record."* The same discipline applies to the
record itself. A frozen record that is quietly amended to match reality is no longer a
frozen record.

Two remedies are available and both are Doug's call:

- **Complete the transition**, at which point §7 becomes true and this correction closes
  with no amendment to GDR-002. This is the outcome VERSION.txt already schedules.
- **Amend §7 by superseding record**, stating that the US/GB/SG canonical pages remained on
  v1.2 with an interim banner, and dating the amendment.

## 5. Blocker on the first remedy

A v1.5 country volume cannot currently be built for US, GB or SG from a frozen source,
because the per-market **binary** rate the flagship publishes has no frozen origin. See
the accompanying figures assessment. Everything else a country volume needs — the
policy-observed denominator, strict/meaningful/expanded rates, and the five-class
distribution with counts — is present and verified in the frozen findings spines.

## 6. Related records

- **GDR-002** — C01 Version Transition (v1.2 → v1.5), 2026-06-29, frozen.
- **GDR-001** — instrument/dataset transition at the data layer.
- **C01 Freeze Record, 2026-06-29** — SHAs of the four country volumes and the flagship.
- **C01-{US,GB,SG,AU}-Findings-Spine-FROZEN** — per-market source of truth.
- `_internal/VERSION.txt` — site build record, v1.4.