How Verification Works

What this covers

What actually happens between signing up and your listing going live.

Why it's a two-stage process

Email verification alone doesn't prove a business is real. Verification here combines: (1) email OTP, and (2) a free web-presence check — if you gave your website URL at signup, we fetch it directly; if not, we run a free web search for your business name and city. Either way, whatever's found is fed to an AI model alongside your claimed details for a consistency read (does this look like the same business, or something unrelated). Both the found content and the AI read are shown to a human admin, who makes the actual approve/reject call — never an automated decision.

Why not Google Business or a paid registry lookup

Google Places stopped offering a free tier in 2025, and a company-registry lookup only confirms legal registration, not whether the business is genuinely active and matches what you described. A free web-presence check, backed by your own booking-verified reviews once you have some, is a more useful and genuinely free signal for a marketplace like this.

When no website or search match isn't a problem

Genuinely new small businesses often don't have a website yet — that alone doesn't get you rejected, it just means the reviewer relies more on the other information you provided (description, categories, CIPC number if given).

How it works

You don't need to do anything extra — the checks run automatically in the background right after signup. You'll see your status (Pending/Verified/Rejected) in your business settings. Adding your website URL at signup (or later in Business settings) makes this check faster and more reliable than relying on a web search alone.