Glossary · Agents and protocols
freshness window
The period during which a stored answer about a site is still considered current, stated as a fresh-until time on the answer itself. Past that time the answer is served as stale, with the staleness marked, until the site is measured again.
What freshness window means
The period during which a stored answer about a site is still considered current, stated as a fresh-until time on the answer itself. Past that time the answer is served as stale, with the staleness marked, until the site is measured again. It can tell a consumer how much to trust an answer right now; it cannot extend the life of an answer by itself, since only a new measurement does that.
What freshness window can and cannot support
| It can support | It cannot support |
|---|---|
| The period during which a stored answer about a site is still considered current, stated as a fresh-until time on the answer itself. Past that time the answer is served as stale, with the staleness marked, until the site is measured again. | It can tell a consumer how much to trust an answer right now; it cannot extend the life of an answer by itself, since only a new measurement does that. |
Where freshness window comes up on this site
- The state of AI visibility, September 2026: what 1,364 scans say a crawler actually receivesIt means a crawler was served a copy older than the origin's own freshness window, so whatever the site fixed last is not yet what an engine reads.
Definitions that name freshness window
Related terms in Agents and protocols
How autonomous agents plan, remember, call tools and talk to each other, including MCP and A2A, and where each step can go wrong.
agentic web · preflight · decision receipt · receipt header · action assurance · resolve answer · AI agent · Agent loop · Planner · Executor · Agent memory · Working memory · Long-term memory · Episodic memory · Semantic memory · Agent orchestration · Multi-agent system · Agent handoff · Delegation · Tool result · Tool schema · Tool description · Tool selection · Tool permission · Human-in-the-loop · Human-on-the-loop · Approval gate · Agent sandbox · Agent identity · Agent authorization · Agent discovery · Capability negotiation · MCP server · MCP client · MCP host · MCP resource · MCP prompt · MCP tool · MCP transport · JSON-RPC · A2A protocol · A2A client · A2A server · Agent skill · Agent task · Agent artifact · WebMCP · A2A
Questions about freshness window
What is freshness window?
The period during which a stored answer about a site is still considered current, stated as a fresh-until time on the answer itself. Past that time the answer is served as stale, with the staleness marked, until the site is measured again.
What does freshness window not show or guarantee?
It can tell a consumer how much to trust an answer right now; it cannot extend the life of an answer by itself, since only a new measurement does that.
Which area of the glossary does freshness window belong to?
Agents and protocols: How autonomous agents plan, remember, call tools and talk to each other, including MCP and A2A, and where each step can go wrong.
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