The entry bar
Every criterion an entry must clear before it appears in the register, every category excluded outright, and the rules that apply to us as much as to anyone else. This document is versioned rather than quietly edited.
What this is
This is the document the register is measured against. It was published before the first entry, deliberately, so that entries can be judged rather than accepted. If an entry is in the register, it cleared every criterion below at the time it was reviewed.
It is a bar, not a recommendation. Clearing it means a business is real, independent, reachable and was trading when someone looked. It says nothing about whether the business is good.
The six criteria
All six must hold. There is no partial pass and no discretionary override.
1. It is a real thing you can buy, use, hire, read or visit today
Not a waitlist, not a landing page, not a pre-launch announcement, not an idea with a mailing list attached. A visitor arriving from here must be able to do something.
2. It is independently owned
Not publicly listed, and not a subsidiary of a company that is. This is recorded as a checked fact with the basis stated on the record, not assumed from the size of the website.
3. It is not primarily an advertising, affiliate, dropship, lead-generation or content-farm vehicle
A business may carry advertising or affiliate links. What disqualifies it is the arrangement being the actual product — where the thing on offer is attention or an enquiry rather than goods or services.
4. A named person examined it and can describe it in our own words
Every entry carries a reviewer's name and the date of review. Descriptions are written here. Operator marketing copy appears only as an attributed quote, never as our description.
5. It passed a dated check by the published method
The procedure is at the method. The date shown on the entry corresponds to a row in the check log; it cannot be entered by hand and it is not refreshed by a build.
6. Any claim we repeat is quoted and attributed, or omitted
If a business says something about itself that we cannot check, we either quote it with attribution and a capture date, or we leave it out. We never restate an unverified claim as though it were ours.
Excluded outright
These categories are out regardless of how well an individual business would otherwise score. The exclusion is not a judgement on any operator in them — it reflects regulatory, safety and verification exposure we are not equipped to carry.
- Adult commerce.
- Gambling, betting and prediction markets.
- Lending, credit, debt management and related financial services.
- Supplements, health products and anything making a health claim.
- Multi-level marketing and recruitment-driven income schemes.
- Crypto tokens, exchanges and trading services.
- Anything requiring a licence, registration or professional authorisation we cannot verify.
Reopening any of these is a legal decision taken with advice, never an editorial one taken because a good business asked.
The rules that apply to us
Publisher-owned properties must be clearly disclosed
A site owned by this publisher can be listed when it meets the same published entry criteria. Its listing must prominently say Publisher-owned and identify the relationship. Ownership is not evidence of quality, an independent review, or a reason for preferential placement.
Related to this: buying anything from us — a template, a workbook, anything that may exist in future — has no effect whatsoever on register consideration. There is no route by which money reaches a listing decision.
The three-entry gate
A category page does not publish until it holds at least three entries that meet the bar and has an editorial introduction written by a person. A category with one entry is a page built to exist rather than to be read, and we would rather show nothing.
How often the bar is applied
At review, and again at every re-check. Meeting the bar once does not keep an entry in the register. If a business changes such that it no longer clears a criterion, the entry is removed — and removal is not an accusation. The note simply records that it no longer meets the bar.
Current measurement boundary
This edition supplies no assessed rows, so the observed entry count and refusal rate are not measured. The criteria above are the complete framework; they are not presented as results from an assessment log.
Versioning
This is version 1, the first published version. Every subsequent version will be recorded at the method changelog with what changed, why, what it invalidated and which entries had to be re-reviewed as a result. Published versions are never rewritten in place.
Questions about the bar
Can I pay to skip any of this?
No. There is no paid route, no expedited review, and no premium consideration. Who pays for this explains why that is enforced by the record structure rather than by policy alone.
My business is good but sits in an excluded category. Is there an appeal?
Not through editorial. The exclusions exist because of regulatory and verification exposure rather than a view of the businesses in them, and lifting one requires legal advice rather than a persuasive submission.
What does 'independently owned' mean in practice?
Not publicly listed, and not a subsidiary of a listed company. We record how we established it on the entry itself. Where we cannot establish it at all, the answer is no rather than a guess.
Does having advertising on my site disqualify me?
No. What disqualifies a business is the advertising or affiliate arrangement being the product itself, rather than a way of paying for a site that sells something else.
Do I need a website?
No. A shop with no website sets out how a physical business can meet the bar without one. What is required is that a named person can establish what you do and confirm you are trading.
Why publish the bar before you have any entries?
So that the first entry can be judged against something. A bar written after the fact tends to describe whatever was already listed.
If I am refused, will you tell me why?
Yes, against the criterion that failed. We publish the general patterns anonymously at the refusal file and never name a refused business anywhere.
Can I be refused after being listed?
Yes. The bar is applied at every re-check. Removal in that case is not an accusation and the note will not read as one.
Entry bar version 1. Changes are recorded at the method changelog. Errors are logged at corrections.