1. Data sources
Listings on NearbyTraders are compiled from publicly available business information, primarily:
- Google Business Profiles — the primary source for business names, addresses, phone numbers, websites, ratings, and review counts
- Public trade directories — cross-referenced for coverage where Google data is incomplete
- Trader submissions — businesses can claim and update their own listing via our contact form
We do not scrape private databases, purchase lead lists, or fabricate listings. Every entry corresponds to a real, publicly findable business.
2. Quality checks
Before a listing goes live, it passes through these checks:
- Trade relevance — the business must genuinely offer the trade category it appears under
- Service area match — the business must serve or be located near the town it is listed in
- Profile completeness — listings must have at minimum a business name and at least one contact method (phone or website)
- Deduplication — we check for duplicate entries of the same business across different data sources
- Name quality — generic or placeholder names (e.g., single characters) are flagged and hidden
Listings that fail quality checks — for example, those with no address, no rating, and no verifiable contact details — are hidden from public view until data can be enriched.
3. Ratings and reviews
Star ratings displayed on NearbyTraders are sourced directly from Google Business Profiles. We do not generate, edit, or influence these ratings in any way.
- Ratings are shown as-is from Google (e.g., "4.8 stars")
- Where a business has no Google rating, we display "No rating" rather than hiding the listing
- Our "Best of" pages use a minimum 4.5-star threshold — only businesses rated 4.5 or above appear on curated best-of lists
We do not operate our own review system. All review data is third-party and publicly verifiable.
4. Certifications and accreditations
Where publicly available, we display trade certifications and scheme memberships including:
- NICEIC — electrical competency scheme
- Gas Safe Register — legal requirement for gas work
- Checkatrade — trade vetting platform membership
- NAPIT — electrical and building compliance
- TrustMark — government-endorsed quality scheme
Certification badges are sourced from public records and trader-submitted information. We recommend homeowners verify certifications directly with the issuing body before hiring.
5. Update cadence
- Full data refresh — listings are refreshed periodically using updated Google Business Profile data
- Trader-submitted updates — processed within 48 hours of receipt
- Dead business removal — permanently closed businesses identified via Google status are removed
- Address and contact enrichment — ongoing, with new data sources integrated as they become available
Each listing page displays a "Last updated" date so homeowners can see how recently the data was checked.
6. Listing order
Listings on trade+location pages are ordered by a combination of data completeness and rating, with the most complete and highest-rated profiles appearing first. Listing order is not influenced by payment. No business can pay to appear higher in the default listing order.
7. What we do not do
- We do not visit premises or inspect work quality
- We do not verify insurance policies or financial standing
- We do not guarantee the accuracy of any individual listing
- We do not vet tradespeople in the way that accreditation bodies do
NearbyTraders is a directory, not a vetting service. We surface publicly available information in a useful format. Homeowners should always carry out their own due diligence — get multiple quotes, verify credentials, check insurance, and ask for references before hiring any tradesperson.