{"id":11532,"date":"2026-07-13T17:52:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=11532"},"modified":"2026-07-13T17:52:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:52:41","slug":"ai-agent-standards-what-do-we-need-to-know-via-sejournal-chrisgreenseo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=11532","title":{"rendered":"AI Agent Standards: What Do We Need To Know? via @sejournal, @chrisgreenseo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p> <div id=\"narrow-cont\"> <p>The search industry is rapidly producing new standards, protocols, and frameworks.<\/p> <p>Terms like MCP, A2A, ARD, or LLMs.txt have been littering LinkedIn and industry publications.<\/p> <p>As overwhelming as another collection of acronyms may seem, most of these standards are attempting to solve different problems at different layers of the emerging agent ecosystem.<\/p> <h2>Mapping These Protocols<\/h2> <p>These standards impact different parts of the agent journey, and they impact in different ways. The map (below) looks at whether the protocol is action-oriented (provides agency \u2013 agent-driven) or knowledge-oriented (provides information \u2013 considered publisher-driven).<\/p> <p>This isn\u2019t just a single axis; it helps to think of it plotted as:<\/p> <ul> <li>Action \u2013 knowledge.<\/li> <li>Agent \u2013 publisher.<\/li> <\/ul> <p><iframe class=\"sej-iframe-auto-height\" id=\"in-content-iframe\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-json\/sscats\/v2\/tk\/Middle_Post_Text\"><\/iframe><\/p> <p>These different standards are at different levels of maturity and adoption and mean different things depending on your job and where you spend your time on a day-to-day basis.<\/p> <figure> <p><figure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 1456px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https_3a_2f_2fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws-sej-297183.jpg\" width=\"1456\" height=\"971\"  class=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"AI Agent Standards: What Do We Need To Know? via @sejournal, @chrisgreenseo\u63d2\u56fe\" alt=\"AI Agent Standards: What Do We Need To Know? via @sejournal, @chrisgreenseo\u63d2\u56fe\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image Credit: Chris Green<\/figcaption><\/figure> <\/p> <\/figure> <h2>The Five-Minute Version<\/h2> <p>Each of these frameworks can be complex and is changing all the time, so treat the below as a short primer to see if\/when\/how you should handle each.<\/p> <p><iframe height=\"412\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" title=\"AI Agent Standards: What Do We Need To Know?\" aria-label=\"Table\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-boAiO\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/boAiO\/1\/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" data-external=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p> <p>For most organizations today, the priority order is:<\/p> <ol> <li>Understand the landscape.<\/li> <li>Improve discoverability.<\/li> <li>Expose capabilities where appropriate.<\/li> <li>Monitor emerging standards.<\/li> <\/ol> <p>Many businesses are already worrying about step four while still struggling with steps one and two.<\/p> <p><iframe height=\"505\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" title=\"AI Agent Standards: What Do We Need To Know?\" aria-label=\"Table\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-UNbbr\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/UNbbr\/1\/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" data-external=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p> <h2>Official Specifications<\/h2> <p>If you think any of these protocols are what you are looking for, I\u2019d strongly suggest reading their docs as my (quicky) summary above (and the changing nature of this space), means it\u2019s a surer way to get what you need.<\/p> <h3>Wait, Don\u2019t Some Of These Compete?<\/h3> <p>Some of these standards overlap, while others solve adjacent problems. In some cases, their creators position them as alternatives for particular use cases, making it easy to assume they\u2019re direct competitors when they\u2019re often complementary.<\/p> <p>A2A, for example, claims to be a better option than MCP servers in some situations, and ARD\/WebMCP both appear to more to the same goal.<\/p> <p>This table should help you understand why\/when some standards may be used over others.<\/p> <p><iframe height=\"708\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" title=\"AI Agent Standards: What Do We Need To Know?\" aria-label=\"Table\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-AbIId\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/AbIId\/1\/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" data-external=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p> <p>The overlap is mostly around discovery, invocation, and orchestration.<\/p> <h2>What Should We Actually Focus On?<\/h2> <p>AI agents won\u2019t interact with websites through a single protocol any more than browsers interact with websites through a single HTML tag. The future is likely to involve a collection of complementary (sometimes conflicting) standards, each solving a different part of the interaction between content, capabilities, systems and transactions.<\/p> <p>The important thing isn\u2019t to adopt every new acronym that appears. It\u2019s to recognize the problem each one is trying to solve, understand whether it\u2019s relevant to your organization, and keep an eye on the standards that are gaining genuine adoption rather than simply generating discussion.<\/p> <p>After reading this, if you\u2019re thinking you might wait it out a little longer to let the dust settle, you\u2019d be forgiven!<\/p> <p>That said, there are a few areas I\u2019d be keeping a close eye on:<\/p> <ul> <li>If you\u2019re in ecommerce, take a look at UCP. Agentic shopping and checkout are moving quickly, and this is likely to be one of the first standards many retailers encounter.<\/li> <li>If you expect AI agents to complete actions on behalf of your customers, keep an eye on WebMCP and ARD. Together, they represent one of the clearest directions of travel for exposing website capabilities to agents.<\/li> <li>If you\u2019re concerned about AI systems discovering and understanding large or complex websites, OKF is the standard I\u2019d be watching most closely.<\/li> <\/ul> <blockquote> <p>Standards don\u2019t become standards because they\u2019re technically superior. They become standards because enough of the ecosystem adopts them.<\/p> <\/blockquote> <p>Some of the protocols discussed here may become foundational to the future web, while others may merge, evolve, or quietly disappear. Understanding what they are today is far more valuable than betting on which one will ultimately \u201cwin.\u201d<\/p> <p><strong>More Resources:<\/strong><\/p> <hr\/> <p><em>This post was originally published on Chris Green Search Marketing (SEO\/AEO).<\/em><\/p> <hr\/> <p><em>Featured Image: Rawpixel.com\/Shutterstock<\/em><\/p> <\/div> <p>Generative AI,SEO,Technical SEO#Agent #Standards #sejournal #chrisgreenseo1783936361<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The search industry is rapidly producing new standards, protocols, and frameworks. Terms like MCP, A2A, ARD, or LLMs.txt have been littering LinkedIn and industry publications. As overwhelming as another collection of acronyms may seem, most of these standards are attempting to solve different problems at different layers of the emerging agent ecosystem. Mapping These Protocols [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1563,13167,80,10106],"class_list":["post-11532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessibility","tag-agent","tag-chrisgreenseo","tag-sejournal","tag-standards"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}