Verification & ranking policy

Local Business Directory (localbusinessdirectory.in) Last updated: 30 September 2026

The short version

"Verified" on this site means one thing: someone here confirmed the business exists at the address shown and answers on the phone number shown. It is not an endorsement of their work.

Where a profile shows a rating carried over from the business's own public profile, it is labelled as such. Only reviews left and moderated here count as ours.

To correct or remove a listing, use the contact page. Removal requests from the business named are actioned without argument.

The rest of this page explains how each of those statements works in practice, so you can judge for yourself how much weight to give a badge, a rating, or a position on a page.

What "Verified" means

A business earns the Verified badge after we complete two checks.

1. The business exists where we say it does. We match the address on the listing against at least one independent source. That is usually the business's own website, its public Google Business Profile, or the owner confirming the details directly. We also check that the locality on the listing matches the real address. A shop on a Dwarka road should not appear under Uttam Nagar just because the two are close.

1. The phone number answers. Someone here calls the number on the listing, or confirms it with the owner in writing. If it goes to voicemail every time, belongs to someone else, or turns out to be a call-routing number rather than the business's own line, the listing does not get the badge.

That is the whole test. We do not visit every premises in person, and we do not claim to.

What "Verified" does not mean

It does not mean we have used the business. It does not mean we have checked its licences, insurance, qualifications, pricing, or the quality of its work. It does not mean the business is better than one without a badge. A new shop that has not answered our call yet may be excellent, and a verified one may still disappoint you.

Think of the badge as a filter against fake or dead listings, not as a recommendation. Before you hire anyone, especially for a large job such as a house move, a renovation, or a child's admission, ask for references, check recent work, and get the price in writing.

How verification can be lost

We may remove the badge if the phone number stops working, the business moves or closes, the owner asks us to, or we receive a credible report that the details are false. We may also re-check a listing at any time. A badge is a statement about the day we checked, so it can go out of date. If you find one that has, please tell us.

Ratings and reviews

There are two kinds of rating on this site. We keep them apart on purpose.

Ratings carried over from the business's own public profile

Some profiles show a star rating and a review count that come from the business's own public profile, such as its Google Business Profile. We show it because many people want to see it, and because it is often the only signal a newer listing has.

We label these plainly, with the source named next to the number. We do not blend them into our own scores, and we do not treat them as ours. They can change on the original profile after we copy them, so the figure on our page may lag behind. We record the date we last copied it where we can.

We do not verify these ratings. If a business has an unusually high score from a small number of reviews, or a pattern that looks manufactured, that is worth your own scepticism, and we may decline to show it.

Reviews left and moderated here

Only reviews written on this site, by real visitors, and approved by us count as our reviews. Every review is read by a person before it goes live. We approve reviews that describe a genuine experience with the business and stay civil. We reject reviews that:

name or identify a private individual, such as a staff member, rather than the business contain phone numbers, addresses, or personal details of anyone other than the business are abusive, threatening, or discriminatory are clearly written by the business owner, a relative, or an employee about their own business are clearly written by a competitor read like advertising, or repeat the same text across several listings look copied from another site

We do not remove a review just because it is negative. A fair one-star review stays up if it describes a real experience and follows these rules. We also do not pay for reviews, offer rewards for good ones, or let businesses choose which reviews appear.

If you are a business owner and believe a review breaks these rules, use the contact page, tell us which review and why, and we will look at it. We may ask the reviewer for more detail. Where a review is real but you dispute the facts, you can ask us to add a short public reply from you beneath it.

How listings are ordered

Businesses on category, locality, and service pages appear in a set order. Here is what does and does not affect it.

What we do not do: we do not sell placement. No business can pay to move up a page, and nobody can buy a Verified badge. If we ever introduce paid features, they will be clearly labelled as advertising and kept separate from the ordinary listing order.

What we do: [CONFIRM AND EDIT BEFORE PUBLISHING: describe the actual ordering rule here. For example, "Listings are ordered by how complete the profile is, with verified listings shown before unverified ones. Where two listings are otherwise equal, the order is alphabetical." Use only what the site's code actually does.]

We do not reorder listings by hand to favour a friend, a client, or an advertiser. The owner of this directory also runs a digital marketing agency, JSS Media Digital, and a few of that agency's clients are listed here. They are treated like any other listing and have no ranking advantage.

Position on a page is not a quality score. A business at the bottom of a list may be the right choice for you, and one at the top may not be.

Where listing information comes from

Listings reach us in three ways: the owner submits them, we source them from public information, or a visitor suggests one. When we write a description ourselves, we write it in our own words from facts we have checked, such as the address, hours, category, and services offered. We do not copy text from a business's website or from third-party reviews.

We may leave out details we could not confirm. An empty phone field or a missing website means we could not verify it, not that the business lacks one.

Correcting or removing a listing

You can ask us to correct, update, or remove any listing by using the contact page at localbusinessdirectory.in/contact/. Please include the business name, the page address, and what you want changed.

If you are the business named, we will action a removal request without argument. We may ask you to confirm that you are connected to the business, for example by replying from an email address on its website or by answering a call on the listed number, so that nobody can take down a competitor's listing by pretending to be the owner. We do not ask you to justify wanting it gone, and we do not charge for it.

If you are a customer or another third party and you believe a listing is wrong, misleading, or unsafe, tell us what you found. We will check it, and where the report holds up we will correct the listing, remove the badge, or remove the listing.

We aim to reply within 7 days and complete the change within 14 days. Removed pages return a "not found" response, and we ask search engines to drop them. Search engines can take longer than we can to update their own results, and we cannot control copies held elsewhere.

For requests about personal data, see our Privacy Policy.

Reporting a problem

If you think a business is misusing the Verified badge, if you have been treated badly by a listed business, or if a review appears fake, please contact us. We cannot settle a dispute between you and a business, and we do not act as a mediator, refund agent, or regulator. What we can do is review the listing and act on what we find. For serious matters such as fraud, you should also report the problem to the police or the relevant consumer authority.

Changes to this policy

If we change how verification, ratings, or ordering work, we will update this page and the date at the top. We will not quietly loosen the meaning of "Verified".

Contact

Questions about this policy or a specific listing: localbusinessdirectory.in/contact/