Relevant first. Payment never hidden in the order.

The organic ordering sequence

1. Service relevance. The requested category and terms are compared with the reviewed services on the listing.
2. Geographic relevance. Results must serve the selected place according to the listing’s reviewed service area or public location.
3. Publication readiness. Only records that pass publication policy can appear as ordinary results. Indexability is evaluated separately.
4. Stable tie handling. When records have the same relevance, a stable editorial order keeps the result predictable rather than selling the tie.

Sparse category pages may remain available as useful directory context while staying out of search indexes. The page explains the reason when reviewed inventory is not yet sufficient.

What does not affect organic rank

• Program enrollment or complimentary partner status.
• Payment, advertising interest, or a sales relationship.
• A relationship with Front Door Digital.
• Owner confirmation by itself.
• Ratings or reviews. The current build does not use them.

Owner confirmation is a narrow trust label. It can add context to a record, but it does not move that business ahead of a more relevant result.

Promotional modules stay separate

The production architecture can support explicitly labeled promotional modules. A promotional module is not an organic result and does not rewrite the ordering of the directory beneath it. Dormant features do not appear before their own review and launch gate.

Reviewing the method

Relevance rules are applied consistently to the reviewed fields available to the directory. Changes to the method belong in this public explanation before they are treated as part of the production experience. Suspected factual errors can be sent through the correction process.