How the order of businesses is decided
This page names every parameter that decides where a business appears in our directory, and how much weight each one carries. It describes what the software actually does – not what we would like it to do.
The default order (“Recommended”)
Two things decide it, in this order. First the paid tier of the business: Gold → Silver → Bronze → Free. A business on a higher tier is placed above one on a lower tier. Second, within one and the same tier, a rotation that is reshuffled every day and is the same for every reader that day.
Why in that order: the directory is free to be listed in and free to search. The paid tiers are what pays for it, so they buy a better average position. The daily rotation exists so that position is the only thing they buy – within a tier nobody is permanently at the top, and in particular not because their name begins with A. Over time every business in a tier gets the same average position.
Counted is the tier actually paid for. A running trial does not lift a business.
Demonstration entries, which exist so the site can be shown when few businesses have signed up, always sort behind every real entry and can never hold a paid slot. They carry a label.
When you type something into the search box
Your words are used to FILTER, not to rank. We match them against the business name, the postcode, the town, and the names of the kind of business, the species and the field of work. Everything that matches is then listed alphabetically by name. There is no relevance score: a business is not placed higher because it matches your words better, and the paid tier does not lift it either.
When you search around a place
Then the order is the distance from that place, nearest first. The paid tier plays no part.
The orders you can choose yourself
When you pick one of these, it replaces every other rule above – including the tier weighting:
- Name A–Z
- Best rated
- Soonest appointment
- Nearest
Paid placement
Above the ordinary list there can be a separate strip of at most 4 paid entries. It is always labelled as advertising and is never mixed into the ordinary list.
A business can only be in it if it is on the highest tier, has been given the slot by hand, and matches the filters you have set – your search words or place and distance, country, region, kind of business, species, field of work, badges, home visits and emergency service. If it takes bookings online, it must also have a free appointment within 14 days.
A business in the paid strip is marked on its card as well. If you change a filter, the strip disappears and those businesses take their chances in the ordinary list – their card keeps the advertising mark, so you can tell.
What the order does NOT take into account
The order does not weigh up the services a business offers, nor how well they fit what you are looking for. It knows the paid tier, the daily rotation, whether an entry is a demonstration entry, the distance when you search around a place, and the order you have chosen yourself. Everything else reaches the order only through the filters you set.
Ratings do not enter the default order either. They only decide it if you pick “Best rated” yourself.
Where else this applies
The same tier weighting and daily rotation decide which businesses appear in the small “free today” strip and in the example on the home page. The alphabetical index of all businesses is what its name says: alphabetical.