Methodology
How trust works here
The short version
We check that a business is genuinely independent before we publish it. We record where every fact came from and when. We say “unknown” when we don't know.
Nobody paid to be recommended here. Nobody can.
What we promise, in numbers you can hold us to
- Corrections
One published service target, the same for everyone
Every business uses the same correction queue and the same published service target.
- Removal
Within 28 days, everywhere
Pages, search, answers, feeds and caches. Once it's removed, we stop it being re-created.
- Paid placement
Doesn't exist
Not “we don't currently offer it”. There is no way at all for money to change an order.
The three statuses, kept apart
None of them is a claim about quality or safety, or that every detail is right.
A reviewer has looked at evidence of who owns and controls the business, recorded a decision under our independence policy, and set a date to check again.
Companies House records can be part of that evidence, but never the whole of it.
A sole trader has no company register of owners to read. For one of those, the check is that the food register lists no other premises under its name in Leeds (or only the family's own shops there), Companies House has no company trading under it, and nothing we read points to a chain or franchise. Its page says exactly which of those we checked.
Someone with authority over the business proved who they are. It says nothing about whether the business is independent, or whether any fact is right.
Claiming, editing or paying never confirms identity on its own.
Every detail carries its own source, how sure we are of it, when we checked it and whether anyone has flagged it as wrong, separately from every other detail on the page.
If we've only inferred a detail, or don't know it, we say so in words. It's never shown as checked.
What can and cannot affect an order
What can
- How well a place fits what you asked, from the facts on its free page
- Where it is, and the area it serves
- Whether it's open, when we know for sure
- How reliable each source is, and how recent each fact is
- First-hand vouches, weighed the same way for every business
- Taking turns between places that fit equally well
- Safety checks and our listing policy
An order may only ever be built from these. Our lists are in A to Z order, which uses none of them and is not a ranking.
What can't
- Anything a business has bought from us
- Writing, illustrations or update help a business paid for
- Sponsorship, or using any of our other products
- Photos: whether there are any, how many, what they show, their order or how people react to them
Anything paid for is kept apart from how places are ordered. Owners can correct any fact we use, for free. There is no paid result to dispute, because money can't buy one.
Who we are
ByLocals is operated by Aceman Software Solutions Ltd, a UK company. We grow area by area, publishing businesses we've researched properly rather than a thin national directory.
Live today: 19 areas in 1 city — Leeds.
We make money from optional services businesses buy for themselves. None of them changes what anyone sees on the public site.