The project presented in this article focuses on the creation of web genre benchmarks (aka web genre reference corpora or web genre test collections), ie newly conceived test collections against which it will be possible to judge the performance of future genre-enabled web applications. The creation of web genre benchmarks is of key importance for the next generation of web applications because, at present, it is impossible to evaluate existing and in-progress genre-enabled prototypes. We suggest focusing on the following key points:) propose a characterisation of genre suitable for digital environments and empirical approaches shared by a number of genre experts working in automatic genre identification;) define the criteria for the construction of web genre benchmarks and draw up annotation guidelines;) create web genre benchmarks in several languages;) validate the methodology and evaluate the results. We describe work in progress and our plans for future development. Since it is sometimes difficult to anticipate the difficulties that will arise when developing a large resource, we present our ideas, our current views on genre issues and our first results with the aim of stimulating a proactive discussion, so that the stakeholders, ie researchers who will ultimately benefit from the resource, can contribute to its design.