How the TradeCheck Score works
The score is computed from what has been verified about a business, not assigned by anyone. It moves on its own as checks are completed, Google ratings change, and certificates expire. A business cannot set it, and paying more does not raise it.
What counts, and how much
| Factor | Share |
|---|---|
| Credentials verifiedWhat share of the required checks have been verified against the source that issued them. Extra checks beyond the required set add a little more. | 35% |
| Reputation on GoogleThe live Google rating and review count for the business, read from Google and never entered by anyone. A 3.0 average earns no credit rather than negative credit, and 5.0 is full marks. Review volume counts on a curve that flattens around 100 reviews. | 30% |
| Years in businessYears in business. A year the business states counts at half until TradeCheck confirms it against the registration record. Twenty years is full marks. | 15% |
| Standing and historyWhether standing has been checked, and whether the business has been suspended. A suspension that was reversed within a day is treated as a correction and is not counted against them. | 20% |
What is deliberately not counted
- Anything a business tells us about itself, apart from the year it was established, which counts at half weight until it is confirmed against the registration record.
- What a business pays. Plans differ in service, never in standing. There is one exception worth stating plainly, below.
- A factor we have no data for. It is dropped and the remaining factors are rescaled, rather than scored as a zero. Marking a business down for something never measured would make the number a statement about us, not them.Currently not counted: Responsiveness.
The one place paying and scoring touch
The TradeCheck plan includes Google Business Profile optimization and help responding to reviews. Reputation is a scored factor. So a business on the plan can end up with more reviews and a better-kept listing than one that is not, and that can raise its score. We would rather say so than let you work it out.
What paying still cannot do, and this is the part that matters: it cannot grant verification, which is a person checking a licence with the state that issued it and an insurance certificate with the carrier. It cannot move the licence, insurance, identity or standing factors, because those are recorded from sources outside this company. It cannot change a rating, which is read from Google and never typed by anyone here. And no review is filtered, hidden, or asked for on condition of being positive: the rating you see is the rating Google publishes, calculated across every review on the listing.
The short version. We can help a business earn a better reputation. We cannot sell it one, and we cannot sell a seal at any price.
When there is no score
A missing score is not a low score. A listing nobody has claimed, or one where no credential has yet been verified against a source, has no score at all, and the profile says so. Verification itself also has a bar: at least a 4 Google rating and 5 reviews, plus identity & ownership, business registration, standing & track record, general liability insurance, google business profile.
Corrections
Staff can set a score by hand in a case the formula cannot express. Doing so requires a recorded reason, and the record keeps what the formula would have said, so the size of any departure stays visible. Every change to a score, a check, or a status is written to a log that cannot be edited or deleted.