Editorial Standards & Link-Check Report.

Every profile in the directory has been read, tagged, and link-tested by a human editor before it appears in public search results. There is no automated bulk-submission pipeline, no overnight indexer scraping third-party tubes, and no “approved upon payment” fast track. A profile either passes the six-step review or it does not go live.

The submission queue is handled by a team of seven full-time editors and two link-check contractors split between Amsterdam and Montréal. From the moment a complete submission lands in the queue to the moment it is published, the average approval time is 6.5 hours. Submissions that fail any single step are returned to the submitter with a written reason — not silently dropped.

The six-step review pipeline

1. Submission intake. The submitter supplies a profile URL, a short editorial bio, and a category preference. Spam filters catch roughly 40% of inbound submissions on the first pass; the rest move to step two.
2. Identity & ownership check. An editor confirms the profile is operated by the person represented, or by an authorised agency. Public web records, prior coverage, and direct correspondence are used. No anonymous ownership is indexed.
3. Category & tag assignment. The profile is placed into one of 42 subcategories by hand, with descriptive tags written by the reviewing editor rather than scraped from the submitter’s own metadata.
4. Live link verification. The outbound link is opened from two independent residential networks within ten minutes of each other. If either test returns a 404, a redirect, a parked domain, or a captive “enter your credit card” gate, the submission fails.
5. Manual editorial rating. The reviewing editor writes a short note describing what the profile actually is, who it appears to serve, and whether it meets the directory’s standard for honest representation. The note is published alongside the listing.
6. Scheduled re-checks. Every published listing is re-tested on a rolling 30-day schedule. A failure on any re-check removes the listing from public search and triggers a written notice to the submitter.

How uptime is measured

Uptime is reported on a rolling 24-month window, not a single best month. A listing counts toward the uptime denominator only after its first full calendar month live in the index. A link that returns any error status — 3xx redirect to an unrelated domain, 4xx, 5xx, parked page, or a domain-for-sale landing — counts as downtime for the full day on which the failure was first observed. Aggregate uptime across all 11,427 indexed profiles for the past 24 months is 98.4%.

The full monthly audit, broken down by subcategory and broken-link count, is published below in the link-check archive. The archive is updated on the first business day of each calendar month and is not edited after publication.