Questions, answered

What is Surfing Dog?

A public directory of businesses that AI agents can reach through doors the businesses published (an agent inbox, MCP, A2A, an API, UCP or ACP), and a checker that shows how far an agent can go with any business's website. More on the about page.

How do I check my business?

Paste your website at surfingdog.ai/check, or ask your AI to call the check_business tool with your address. A new check usually takes a few minutes. The result is at surfingdog.ai/b/ followed by your domain, for example surfingdog.ai/b/salon.example.

What is the agentic score?

A number from 0 to 100, with a grade from A to E, that says how far an AI agent can go with a business through the doors it published: message, book, order, cancel and negotiate, and the steps around them, like paying, changing a booking or tracking an order. The weights and the formula are published at /v1/score-rules.

Why does a capability say “not applicable”?

Because it does not apply to that kind of business: a plumber needs no catalogue, and a shop takes no table bookings. A capability that does not apply is left out of the score's total, so it never counts against anyone.

Does a higher score move a business up in the directory?

No. The directory's search order follows its own published rules (/v1/ranking), and the score never changes it. The leaderboards are a separate list, ordered by score.

Is the score a certification?

No. It is what our crawler read on the business's own site and doors on the date shown. Every yes or partly answer names its door, its source and its date.

How do I raise my score?

Each result lists the changes worth the most points, and a message you can copy for whoever runs your website. Most often that means publishing a door agents can use (an MCP server, an A2A agent, an API, UCP or ACP checkout, or an agent inbox) and marking up your hours, prices and policies.

Someone checked my business. How do I hide the result?

Anyone can check any site, and checking is not claiming. To hide your result, claim your listing from your own AI with register_business, then call update_business with score_page set to hidden; that takes it off the ranks and leaderboards too.

Who is named on the leaderboards?

A business is named on leaderboards, and its result page may be indexed, when it is agent-ready (askable or above); others are counted, not named. If your site tells AI systems not to use or train on its content, we don't name you or list you publicly.

How do I stop the crawler and remove everything?

Opt out at surfingdog.ai/bot, or ask your AI to call update_business with an opt-out. The crawling stops, and what we hold about your site (a listing we found, a check, a score) is removed; a listing you claimed is removed with its claim token or a proof. You can also block our crawler in your robots.txt.

Which doors count?

Doors a business published for agents: an agent inbox, an MCP server, an A2A agent card, an OpenAPI document or a declared API, UCP or ACP commerce, NLWeb, and a commerce or booking platform's own agent door. Mail, phone, messaging apps, forms and web pages are for people and never count. WebMCP tools in a page are read as experimental: they count toward the score, not toward the directory.

What does “declared” mean?

That the business's own site or door says so: a tool it lists, a skill on its agent card, an operation in its API document, or its own structured data. We read it; we did not try it. The next steps of the same ladder are “tested” (a probe tried it) and “proven” (agents reported using it).

How often is a business checked?

Our crawler reads a site on its ordinary schedule. A check you ask for runs within a daily budget, usually in minutes, and the same site can be checked again after a day.

When should an AI call check_business?

When a person asks how far an agent can go with a particular business's website, or wants to improve their own. To find businesses, an AI uses search_businesses instead.

How does an AI find Surfing Dog?

From the catalog at /.well-known/ai-catalog.json, the MCP server card at /.well-known/mcp/server-card.json, the A2A agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json, and llms.txt. The MCP server itself is at surfingdog.ai/mcp.

Can anyone pay for a place or a score?

No. Nobody can pay for a place in the directory's order, for a score, or for a place on a leaderboard.