How directories actually work
Listing sites, comparison pages and best-of lists all earn money somehow. Here we explain how, including how we would if we ever did, so you can read any of them sceptically. Including this one.
What this section is for
Most people have been misled by a listing page at some point: a ranking that turned out to be sold, a 'verified' badge that certified nothing, a directory full of businesses that shut years ago, or a listing about their own business that they never agreed to and cannot remove.
None of that is mysterious once you know how the money moves. This section explains the mechanisms, gives you checks you can run in under two minutes, and describes the patterns without accusing anyone.
One rule runs through everything here: we describe patterns, never a named site as deceptive. Every model below can be run honestly and disclosed. The problem is almost always non-disclosure rather than payment itself.
Start with the mechanism
How business directories actually make money: the five models is the piece to read first. Paid inclusion, paid position, lead sale, affiliate and data resale — each described structurally, each with the tell it leaves on the page.
Once you can name the model, everything else in this section is an application of it.
Reading a listing page
Spot a bought listing in ninety seconds
Six checks, none needing a tool, each explained by the mechanism behind it. Read it.
Anatomy of a top 10 list
How the order in a best-of list is usually decided before anyone tests anything. Read it.
'Verified' means nothing by default
What a badge would have to prove, and the four questions that expose one that proves nothing. Read it.
How to read a review section properly
What volume, recency and distribution each tell you — and what none of them do. Read it.
Lead-gen sites dressed as directories
Where your enquiry goes after you press submit, and who paid for it. Read it.
The vocabulary
Directory, aggregator, marketplace, lead-gen, listicle, doorway page — six words for six different relationships. Read it.
If a listing site has published you
How to get your business removed from a directory that scraped you is the practical piece: the escalation ladder in order of effort, a reusable request you can send, and an honest account of the point at which the ladder stops working.
It is careful about jurisdiction. Removal rights differ by where you and the site are, so anything of that kind is attributed to a named primary source in the ledger rather than asserted as though it applied everywhere. A ready-made letter is at templates.
Why so many listings are dead
Adding a listing is a one-off cost. Keeping it true is a recurring one, and almost nobody's business model funds the second. Why directories are full of businesses that closed years ago is the short version; the cost of intake follows the economics one level down.
It is also why this register keeps tombstones rather than deleting, and why the date next to an entry matters more than the entry count.
Including us
This site is a directory in the structural sense, so everything above applies to it. Two pieces make that explicit: why we don't rate anyone, which names what you lose because we refuse to rank, and what we'd have to do to become the thing we criticise, which lists our own failure modes and the external signals you could watch for.
The mechanism side is at who pays for this and the entry bar.
Deciding for yourself
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As a buyer: what to check before you buy from a business you've never heard of and how to choose between two suppliers when nobody publishes ratings.
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As an operator: should you be on a directory at all — a decision guide with branches that end in no, including one about us.
Questions about this section
Why won't you name the worst offenders?
Because it would be an accusation we cannot substantiate to a legal standard, about a business that cannot answer back on our pages. Patterns transfer to sites we have never seen; a blocklist does not.
Is paid inclusion dishonest?
Not inherently, and plenty of businesses find paid listings worthwhile. What causes harm is a paid ordering presented as an assessment, or a payment that is disclosed in a place nobody reads.
Do these checks work on any listing site?
They are written to. Each check is explained by the mechanism that produces it rather than by the appearance of a particular page, so you can adapt it to a layout we have never encountered.
I paid for a listing that did nothing. Can you help?
Not directly — we cannot intervene between you and another company. Should you be on a directory at all may help you decide about the next one, and the delisting piece covers getting out.
Does this section tell me how to rank in directories?
No. Ranking tactics are a different subject and not one this site covers. What is here is how to read a listing page, and how to be legible to a stranger — see being findable.
Why is this the biggest section on the site?
Because it is the part that makes the register believable. A list asking for trust should first explain how lists earn money, including its own.
Every article in this section describes patterns rather than naming operators. Sourced claims resolve to the ledger.