What is WCAG conformance?

WCAG conformance means a website satisfies the success criteria of a chosen WCAG level, in practice Level AA of version 2.2. It is measured per page and per criterion, not as a vibe: every template either passes each applicable criterion or fails it, and the store's status is the sum. Because stores change weekly, conformance is a moving state that has to be tracked, not a one-time certification.

What a conformance claim really says

A real conformance claim names the standard, the level, the pages covered, and the date. 'WCAG 2.2 Level AA across all customer-facing templates as of this month's scan' is a claim. A badge on the footer is not. Courts, insurers, and acquirers all ask for the first kind, with the records behind it.

Why status decays

Theme updates refactor templates, apps inject new markup, and content edits alter heading structure and images. Any of these can drop a template from passing to failing without anyone noticing, because nothing about the change announces an accessibility regression. Stores that measured once and stopped are usually running on a stale claim.

How to hold the line

Track conformance per template per criterion over time: a baseline, regular full scans, alerts when anything regresses, and dated fixes verified by rescan. The trend line that produces is simultaneously your operational dashboard and your legal evidence, which is why AccessWatchHQ is built around it. The first baseline comes from a free accessibility audit.