Nobody can pay us to rank higher, to be verified, or to make a review go away. Here is what actually decides the order.
By rating, then by how many reviews that rating is built on. A business with a strong average and forty reviews sits above one with the same average and two, because the second has not been tested yet.
You can change the order yourself — most reviewed, or most experienced — and filter by neighbourhood, trade, minimum rating, or verified only. Whatever you choose, the ordering is the same for everyone. There is no slot that a business can buy.
If you have picked a neighbourhood, results serving your area come first, then areas nearby, then the rest of the city. Distance changes the order of businesses that already matched. It never adds one that would not otherwise be there.
Some pages show a small block of professionals under a heading that says they were suggested by us. They are matched on trade, area and rating, and that block carries the same line wherever it appears: nobody paid to be there. If we ever do sell placement, it will be labelled as an advertisement, plainly, in the place it appears.
A tick means we checked something specific, and it cannot be bought. A professional is approved only after a person reviews their identity documents; until then they are not shown to customers and cannot be sent work. A business listing is claimed only after we verify ownership with the business itself, usually by calling the number on the listing.
A business can be listed without being verified, and can be verified without being claimed. The badge says which.
One review per person per business. A business cannot pay to remove one, and we do not edit them to suit anyone. What a business can do is reply publicly, once, and that reply sits under the review for everyone to read.
Reviews come down only when they break the rules — when they are not first-hand, are abusive, or are written to attack rather than describe. That is a moderation decision, the author is told, and they can appeal it.
There are no adverts on Zinola. We do not run an ad network, we do not embed third-party ad scripts, and no page here is paid for by the business it features. The site is free for businesses to be listed on, and free for professionals to join; Zinola makes money by taking a 10% fee on jobs booked through it, which comes out of the professional's side.
If that model changes, this page changes with it, and anything paid will be labelled.
See also our terms and what we collect.