How ranking works
Five rules. They apply to every business in every city, and they don’t bend for money.
Every business is listed free
We seed every city’s listings from OpenStreetMap, so a business appears here whether or not it has ever heard of us. Nobody pays to be listed. Nobody pays to be found.
Ranking position is never for sale
Position comes from community nominations and votes — one vote per verified person, per business, per category, per season. Businesses can pay for profile upgrades (photos, badges, an expanded page), and those are always labeled. Paying changes how a profile looks. It never changes where a business ranks.
Votes are verified and audited
Voting requires a verified email. Pre-season standings are provisional; before each official awards cycle we re-audit the full vote log and publish the methodology.
Nominations are transparent
When we tell a business it was nominated, we say how many times and when. No vague flattery, no dark patterns.
“Featured” is not a vote
Some category pages show a Featured panel above the standings. Those listings are chosen by us, never by voters, and they earn no votes and no ranking credit whatsoever. A slot marked Editor’s pick was chosen by hand; one marked Featured was selected automatically from the published listings in that category that carry the most complete contact information — a website and a phone number — with ties broken alphabetically. Featuring is never sold, and it can never make a page eligible for search indexing: only real community nominations do that.
Wrong listings get fixed
Listings are re-checked against OpenStreetMap monthly, closed businesses are marked, and any owner can claim their profile free to correct their information at any time. Base listing data © OpenStreetMap contributors, used under ODbL. City list from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0).
What gets a ballot thrown out
Bursts, coordinated accounts, proxy networks — automated systems watch for suspicious patterns and set those votes aside for review rather than counting them.