What's New in Crawlux Methodology v2 (Q2 2026)

Summary of v2 changes

Methodology v2 is a quarterly update following the v1 release in Q4 2025. The headline changes:

New analyzer modules. Two new modules join the existing eight: bridge schema validation (for cross-chain token pages) and governance schema validation (for DAO pages). Both produce independent scores that contribute to the composite.

Score weighting changes. AEO weight increases from 15% to 22% of the composite score, reflecting the growing share of crypto discovery happening through AI search. Backlink toxicity weight decreases from 12% to 8%, reflecting Google's continued de-emphasis of links as a primary ranking signal for YMYL content.

AEO calibration. The citation rate baseline used to score AEO performance has been recalibrated against a wider prompt set (50 prompts per category, up from 30). Sites that scored well on v1 may score slightly differently on v2 because the underlying baseline has shifted.

Schema validator updates. The schema validator now catches three additional FinancialProduct anti-patterns and supports the new ERC-7281 cross-chain token standard.

New analyzer modules in v2

Two new modules ship in v2. Both produce independent scores that fold into the composite via the updated weighting scheme.

Bridge schema validation. Token pages that describe cross-chain or bridged assets need additional schema properties to disambiguate the chain context. The new module validates that bridge tokens declare the source chain, the destination chain and the bridge protocol explicitly. Token pages that fail this check get cited incorrectly in AI responses about cross-chain assets.

Governance schema validation. DAO pages and governance landing pages need Organization schema with member counts, voting thresholds and governance token contract addresses. The new module validates these properties and flags pages that describe DAOs without exposing the structured governance data.

Both modules are non-breaking. Sites that do not have bridged tokens or DAO pages skip the modules and the composite score is unaffected. Sites that do have these pages will see new findings; the findings are typically low-effort fixes with measurable AEO impact.

Why the weighting changed

Two weight changes ship in v2. Both reflect data we accumulated across 200+ audits delivered in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026.

AEO weight up to 22% from 15%. The data shows that AEO citation rate is a stronger predictor of organic traffic growth for crypto sites than backlink profile is. The previous weighting underrepresented AEO's contribution; the new weighting matches the empirical data.

Backlink toxicity weight down to 8% from 12%. The data shows that for YMYL crypto content, Google de-emphasizes link signals in favor of E-E-A-T and structured data signals. The previous weighting overrepresented link-based ranking factors; the new weighting reflects the current Google ranking model.

Sites that re-run audits on v2 will see modest score changes even if nothing on the site has changed. Sites that scored high on AEO and low on backlinks will see slight composite-score lifts. Sites that scored high on backlinks and low on AEO will see slight drops. The changes are typically within 3 to 5 points; larger deltas usually indicate that one of the v1 sub-scores was an outlier.

How to re-baseline existing audits on v2

For teams comparing v1 audits against v2 audits, three steps make the comparison meaningful.

Step 1: Re-run the audit at the same point in time. If you have a v1 audit from January and you want to compare against current performance, run a fresh v2 audit now. Do not compare January v1 against today's v1 if v2 is available; the methodology mismatch hides real changes.

Step 2: Look at sub-scores, not the composite. The composite score reflects the new weighting, which makes year-over-year comparison noisy. Sub-scores (technical, schema, AEO, authority) use the same calculation across versions and are directly comparable.

Step 3: Run the new modules separately. Bridge and governance schema modules are new in v2. If your site has bridged tokens or DAO pages, the new module scores represent ground that did not exist in v1. Treat them as new baselines, not regressions.

The v2 release notes are available in the dashboard under Settings > Methodology Version. Audits run after February 28, 2026 use v2 by default. Audits run before that date used v1 and remain valid for v1 sub-score comparisons.

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