Why do two directories disagree about the same endpoint?
The short answer
Because they measure different things. One directory's label says an endpoint answered with the payment-required status in time; our reading says whether that answer carried a quote an agent could pay. The two can diverge, and did.
As published in the issue
Across 21–31 August 2026 we recorded 29,022 observations and compared 7,225 independently graded endpoints with 402index's health labels.
(2) The OBSERVED population: every endpoint on probe402's seed that produced at least one graded observation inside the sealed window of 21–31 August 2026, joined to a third party's published label for the row whose address is the exact route we probe; an endpoint we did not grade, or whose label read failed, is outside every joined figure and is counted rather than dropped.
402index's
healthylabel means the endpoint answered HTTP 402 within its timeout; MCRI tests whether the response contained a payable quote.
The sentence above is quoted from a published issue and is not re-written here. Its date, its population and the record behind it are below.
Why it matters
A reader who sees two instruments disagree tends to distrust both. Knowing what each measures turns a contradiction into two compatible facts about the same endpoint.
What we measured
We graded thousands of endpoints independently across the observed population in the sealed late-August window and compared each grade with the directory's published label for the same route.
What the evidence shows
- Sealed days behind the archive figures
- 11
- Observations in that window
- 29,022
- Issue
- Machine Commerce Reality Index: #001 — August 2026
- Published
11 days
2026-08-21 · 2026-08-22 · 2026-08-23 · 2026-08-24 · 2026-08-25 · 2026-08-26 · 2026-08-27 · 2026-08-28 · 2026-08-29 · 2026-08-30 · 2026-08-31
All 11 days behind these figures (21–31 Aug 2026) are sealed, each with its published hash on the Integrity page; each date opens that day's manifest.
What this does not say
- Third-party figures are those providers' own published numbers, quoted with their own denominators and the date we read them. They are not our measurements of those providers.
Method and reproduction
The runs behind the figures, the record each one produced, and the terms this question uses.
What ran, when, and the record it produced.
| What ran | When | Record hash |
|---|---|---|
| The join behind the issue's opening finding: every independently graded endpoint of the sealed window set beside one fresh dated read of the health-label surface, covering all 1,588 hosts we cover, with that surface's own last-checked stamp carried per row. | 158940a9769dd5b44614f9f9201235f708388e7b0fdae0a589e3fd063798be1a |
The terms
The terms this question uses are defined in the glossary.
Corrections and disputes
This answer names a party we measure. The route to dispute a reading is on the corrections page.
Corrections to this issue are on the corrections register, and this answer reads from the record rather than from a copy.