Gone
Browse the live directory, try Stumble, or suggest a business. All submissions require editorial review. The reference material below describes the published standard; it is not evidence that an individual business has been checked. No public dataset export or automated check log is offered.
This reference defines how a confirmed closure would be recorded. No business tombstone or closure outcome is supplied.
Current state
Tombstones published: 0
This page is the complete tombstone procedure. No live tombstone row is represented here; a row exists only when it carries the required checks, dates, and human confirmation described below.
Why we keep them
Almost every listing site deletes. The listing simply stops appearing and the record of it having existed goes with it, which means nobody can tell whether the site is maintained or whether the business is still out there somewhere.
A tombstone answers a real question — did this close? — that is otherwise very hard to answer about a small business. It is also the honest accounting: if we told you something existed, and it no longer does, that is a thing we said and should be able to point at.
A maintained register must preserve removals as tombstones. Any entry-to-tombstone ratio is publishable only from actual dated rows; this page makes no ratio claim.
What has to happen before a tombstone appears
- A check returns unreachable.
- At least fourteen days pass.
- A second check returns unreachable.
- A named person confirms it independently, looking for the things a script cannot see — a move, a rebrand, a sale, a pause.
- Only then is the entry moved, with the date of its final check.
The threshold is deliberately slow. Declaring a working business closed is the most damaging error this site can make, and it costs the operator in a way a missing entry never does.
What a tombstone contains — and what it never will
| We publish | We do not publish |
|---|---|
| The date it was last seen alive. | Any reason for the closure, unless the owner published one themselves. |
| The date of the first failed check. | Any speculation about difficulty, debt, dispute or conduct. |
| The date closure was confirmed. | Any characterisation of the business or the people who ran it. |
| What we observed — plainly, factually. | Anything that reads as a judgement, an obituary or a warning. |
| What the business was, in our own words. | Any personal detail about the owner, including a home address. |
| A successor, only if one is publicly stated. | A guessed successor, or a competitor presented as an alternative. |
The four states we distinguish
- Closed for good — the only case that produces a tombstone.
- Moved or rebranded — the entry is re-reviewed and rewritten, not tombstoned.
- Paused or seasonal — the entry is flagged, not removed. See the is-it-open problem.
- Sold — reviewed against the entry bar again, since independence may have changed.
If we got it wrong
Marking a trading business as closed is the most damaging error this site can make. The corrections procedure sets out how a mistaken tombstone is recorded and corrected, with the error noted rather than hidden.
If you would rather the tombstone simply came off the site entirely, the removal procedure does that, no reason required.
Questions about tombstones
Is a tombstone a criticism of the business?
No, and the wording is chosen carefully to make sure it cannot be read as one. Businesses close for every reason imaginable, most of them nobody's fault, and none of them ours to speculate about.
Why won't you say why a business closed?
Because we almost never know, and a guess about someone's livelihood is not a thing to publish. If the owner has said publicly why, we can quote them with attribution. Otherwise the page says what we observed and stops.
Someone I know has closed. Can I tell you?
Use Contact to send a report. A closure is recorded only after the checks in the method — two failed checks at least fourteen days apart, then a person confirming it — so a report would start that sequence, not replace it.
Do tombstones stay forever?
They stay unless the operator asks us to remove one, which we do free and without asking why. There is no archival argument that outweighs someone wanting their closed business off a stranger's website.
What if a business reopens?
It goes back through the entry bar as a new review, because ownership, focus or independence may have changed. The tombstone is removed rather than left standing alongside the live entry.
Do search engines index these pages?
Yes. 'Did this close?' is a genuine question people ask and a tombstone is a useful answer to it. That is different from the stumble surface, which is deliberately kept out of search.
Counts on this page come from the register. See the method for the failure sequence and corrections to report an error.