Coverage

Be clear about who is missing.

A useful record should tell you what it covers. It should also make the gaps easy to see.

Where we are today

Standard Local does not yet publish business records or assessments. We intend to start with home services. The first trade, geographic area, and launch date have not been announced.

The town on the homepage is an illustration. It does not represent a covered neighborhood, real businesses, or work we have checked.

Start with a scope we can maintain.

We propose beginning with one defined trade and area. Before publishing records, we would explain the boundaries, the source used to identify businesses, and which kinds of claims we can check there.

Expansion should depend on whether we can maintain the records, handle corrections, and explain local requirements. A larger directory would not be useful if its information quietly went stale.

Make inclusion rules public.

Businesses should be included under published criteria, whether or not they pay us or have a relationship with the team behind Standard Local. Inclusion should not require buying a product.

The initial list may still miss businesses. We would explain how the list was assembled, what sources it depends on, and how someone can flag an omission. When the total number of eligible businesses is uncertain, we would say so rather than claim complete coverage.

Do not make absence look like a verdict.

A missing record should mean we have not published a record. A missing field should explain whether it was not checked, could not be found in the sources used, or remains unresolved. Neither should become an implied judgment about the business.

A business with a well-documented record may be easier to assess than one with little available evidence. That difference alone does not establish which business does better work.

Show the limits beside the coverage.

For each covered area, we propose publishing:

• The trade, geography, inclusion criteria, and date the list was assembled.
• The number of published records and which checks they include.
• Known omissions and sources that were unavailable or incomplete.
• How many checks are current, overdue, or unresolved, with the totals those figures refer to.
• Any sampling limits that affect a service-quality assessment.

How individual claims would be checked is described in Our methods. The proposed way to report an omission or error is described in Corrections and appeals.