How We Vet Contractors
We publish exactly what we check, what we do not check, and how you can verify a contractor yourself. Most listings on Contractors Ranked are aggregated from public data, and we will not describe them as more than that.
Published 2026-02-03 · Last reviewed 2026-09-30
Three Sources, Stated Plainly
Every field on a listing can be traced to one of these sources.
Public business data
Business names, addresses, phone numbers, service categories, and websites are compiled from public business data and directories. This is the majority of the 1,378,804+ contractor records in our index.
Google Business Profiles
The star rating and review count on each listing come from that business’s public Google Business Profile. We show the business’s own rating and review volume, never a single invented site-wide score, and the excerpts are quoted from those public reviews.
State & provincial registries
We link out to the official licensing bodies so you can verify a licence yourself, and we never assert licence status for an aggregated record. The verification links are listed further down this page.
Aggregated vs. Claimed
The distinction matters. A claimed listing is one the owner has confirmed; it is not a licence or insurance check.
Every listing (aggregated)
Built from public data. Most of our 1,378,804+ records are here.
- Compiled from public business data and Google Business Profiles.
- Rating and review count refreshed periodically from those public sources.
- Obvious duplicates and permanently closed locations are removed where we can detect them.
- No site visit, no licence check, no insurance check.
- Not labelled "verified", and not presented as an endorsement.
Claimed listings
What actually changes when an owner takes control of a record.
- The owner has completed email and account verification to confirm control of the record.
- The owner can correct hours, services, service area, logo, description, and contact details.
- Owner-submitted corrections may be reviewed, and fields we cannot display accurately are removed.
- Still not a licence, insurance, or background check, and still not an endorsement of quality.
What We Do Not Do
We would rather lose a sale than imply a check we did not run.
- We do not visit job sites or inspect completed work.
- We do not independently verify licences or insurance for aggregated listings.
- We do not award a "Highly Recommended" badge — there is no such program.
- We do not publish projects-completed or satisfaction-rate statistics, because we do not collect that data.
- We do not disguise sponsored placements: Top Positions are labelled as sponsored.
Our indexability threshold
We ask search engines to index a business page only when it has at least 25 Google reviews or the owner has claimed the listing. Pages below that bar stay live and can be claimed, but are marked noindex so thin records do not pollute search results. When we last measured it, 271,182 of 1,378,804+ records met this bar. We also display a star rating only when the source publishes one, and we never print an "N/A" rating.
How To Verify A Contractor
Five checks that take less time than a single bad project costs.
- 1
Ask for the licence number, then check it yourself
Confirm the licence is active and held by the business name on the contract, using the state or provincial registry linked below. A contractor who will not provide a licence number should be avoided.
- 2
Request proof of insurance
Ask for a certificate of insurance showing general liability coverage and, where applicable, workers’ compensation. Call the insurer to confirm the policy is current.
- 3
Get at least three written, itemized quotes
Compare the same scope of work line by line — materials, labour, permits, cleanup, and exclusions — rather than comparing only the totals.
- 4
Check recent references and review patterns
Ask for references from nearby jobs in the last 12 months, and read recent reviews for repeated themes rather than judging on the star average alone.
- 5
Agree payments and put the scope in writing
A deposit of roughly 10-30% with milestone payments is typical. Never pay the full contract price up front, and always get the scope, price, schedule, warranty, and change-order process in a signed contract.
Official licensing registries
- California — Contractors State License Board
- Texas — Department of Licensing and Regulation
- Florida — Department of Business and Professional Regulation
- New York — Department of State, Division of Licensing Services
- Illinois — Department of Financial and Professional Regulation
- Ontario, Canada — Electrical Safety Authority and TSSA (regulated trades)
Licensing rules vary by trade and state or province. If yours is not listed, search for your state or provincial contractor licensing board and confirm the licence directly. In Canada, regulated trades are licensed provincially — for example the Electrical Safety Authority and TSSA in Ontario.
Who maintains this page
This page is written and maintained by the Contractors Ranked Research Team, the group that runs the public-records and Google Business Profile pipeline described above. We review this page whenever our data sources or thresholds change. We do not publish an individual author byline because no single person is responsible for the aggregated data behind it; the responsible party is the organisation.
Published 2026-02-03 · Last reviewed 2026-09-30
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