Why a business might not be listed

Absence is not a verdict

If a business you rate is not in one of our independent Singapore service directories, the most likely explanation is administrative, not editorial.

We say this first because a ranked list invites the opposite reading. A reader who sees forty locksmiths and not the one their neighbour recommends reasonably wonders what we know that they do not. Usually the answer is nothing at all. There are five ordinary reasons a business is absent, and only one of them is even adjacent to quality.

The five reasons

1. Wrong trade category

Each directory covers one trade. A company that does mostly renovation work and takes plumbing jobs on the side may not sit in a directory such as the Singapore Plumber Guide, because a reader searching there wants a plumber, not a contractor who will subcontract one.

This is the reason we get most wrong, and it is easy to fix. If your business is in the wrong category or missing from a category it belongs in, tell us.

2. Outside Singapore

Every directory we publish covers Singapore only. A company based elsewhere that occasionally takes work here is out of scope, however good it is.

3. Permanently closed

Closed businesses are removed automatically at the monthly re-check, using public closure signals. Nobody needs to report a closure for this to happen.

Occasionally this catches a business that has not closed but looks closed from the outside, usually after a long dormant period or a change of trading name. That is our error and we correct it as soon as we know.

4. Failed a validity check

Before anything is scored, it has to be a real, currently-operating business that does the work itself rather than reselling the job. Lead marketplaces and aggregator pages are excluded on that basis. The checks are described in how we check a business is real.

This is the exclusion closest to a judgement, and even here it is a judgement about what an entity is, not how well it works.

5. Removed on request

Some businesses ask not to be listed, and we honour that. A removed business is not penalised, not flagged, and not annotated with an explanation, so from a reader’s side it simply is not there.

What we do not use as a reason

It is worth naming the exclusions we do not make, because readers assume some of them.

Size. A one-person operation is listed on the same terms as a twenty-van company. Nothing in the method rewards scale for its own sake, and in several trades the small operator has the better review record.

Age. A business that opened last year is listed if it passes the validity checks. It will score low for a while, because volume is one of the inputs and there is no honest way around that, but low is not absent.

A bad score. We do not remove businesses for scoring poorly. A directory that quietly dropped its worst entries would be presenting a flattering slice of the market as if it were the market, which is a subtler version of selling rank.

A complaint about them. Somebody disliking a business is not grounds for exclusion, in either direction. Reviews feed the score; they do not trigger removal.

Not talking to us. Businesses do not need to register, respond, or acknowledge anything to stay listed, and silence is never read as a request to be removed.

What absence never means

It does not mean a business is disreputable, low-quality, or under investigation. We do not maintain a blacklist, and there is no “excluded for poor performance” category.

It also does not mean a business paid to be hidden, any more than presence means a business paid to appear. Nothing on these directories is for sale, which cuts both ways: rank cannot be bought and neither can absence.

Checking before you assume

If a business you expected is missing, two checks usually explain it before you write to us.

Look under the trade it mostly does. A company that describes itself as a general contractor but takes plumbing jobs may sit in a different directory, or in none, because the category is assigned from what the business publicly presents itself as doing.

Check the trading name. Businesses rebrand, merge, and operate under holding names that look nothing like the name on the van. A listing may be there under a name you do not recognise.

If neither explains it, tell us. A genuine gap in the set is more useful to us than to you, and we would rather hear about it than have a reader quietly conclude the directory is incomplete.

Getting added, or getting out

Either request goes to the same place, costs nothing, and needs no account.

To be added, email us with your business name, the directory it belongs on, and where you operate. If the directory is still being compiled, we hold the request until the set is built. To be removed, say so and it is done.

Both routes are set out in corrections and removals, with a five-business-day target for standard requests. If you are an owner who has just found your business listed without being asked, if your business is listed covers the rest of the questions that usually follow.