Methodology › Verification Score
Verification Score Methodology
Version 1.0 · Published 2025-05-08
Purpose
The Verification Score gives visitors a single, transparent indicator of how much independently verifiable information we hold for a dog boarding operator. A higher score means more of the operator's publicly observable data is fresh, complete, and cross-referenced — not that the operator is better or safer.
Every component of the score is derived from public sources: council licensing registers, the operator's own website, public review aggregators, and Companies House. No private or customer-submitted data enters the score.
Formula
The score is a weighted average of six components. If a component is unavailable (marked with an asterisk below), its weight is redistributed across the remaining components proportionally.
| Component | Weight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Licence verification | 40% | Council licensing register |
| Source freshness | 20% | Date of most recent council source fetch |
| Price transparency | 15% | Operator website / approved price observation |
| Profile completeness | 10% | Cross-check of published claim types |
| Review source coverage * | 10% | Google / Trustpilot / Facebook aggregate |
| Company or licence history | 5% | Companies House / first observed licence |
* Weight redistributed if no review source data is available.
Components in detail
Licence verification (40%)
Derived from the most recent row in our licence observations table for this operator.
- Current licence on council register, observed within 120 days: 100
- Licence observed, but source data older than 120 days: 70
- Licence expiry date passed with no renewal observation: 40 (flagged for re-check)
- No licence observation: operator is not published (score does not display)
Source freshness (20%)
Measures how recently our pipeline last successfully read the primary council licensing source for this operator.
- Source checked within 60 days: 100
- 61–120 days: 70
- 121–180 days: 40
- Over 180 days: 10 (page may be suppressed)
Price transparency (15%)
Reflects whether we have a recent, directly observed price for the operator.
- Approved direct price (operator website or manual research) within 90 days: 100
- Operator-supplied current price: 90
- Any approved price older than 90 days: 40
- No approved price: 0
Profile completeness (10%)
Checks whether four key claim types are all present and published for the operator: licence status, a price, an address/location display, and a verified website.
- All four dimensions present: 100
- Three of four present: 75
- Two or fewer present: 40
Review source coverage (10%) *
Indicates whether a public review aggregate (Google, Trustpilot, or Facebook) is available and attributed for this operator. This component measures data availability — not the quality of reviews.
- At least one source with 10 or more attributed reviews: 100
- Source present, but below that threshold: 50
- No review source found: this component is excluded and its weight is redistributed
Company or licence history (5%)
Reflects how long we have been able to observe this operator in public records. Sole traders without Companies House records are not penalised — we use their first observed licence date instead.
Score = years of observable history × 10, capped at 100. A ten-year-old operator reaches maximum points.
Score labels
These labels are intentionally neutral — they describe data availability, not service quality.
| Range | Label |
|---|---|
| 85–100 | High data confidence |
| 70–84 | Good data confidence |
| 50–69 | Partial data |
| < 50 | Limited public data |
We deliberately avoid labels like “Excellent,” “Caution,” “Poor,” or “Trusted,” as these imply quality verdicts the score is not designed to make.
What this score does not measure
- Animal welfare standards or inspection outcomes
- Service quality or customer satisfaction
- Value for money or price competitiveness
- Whether the operator is recommended by any authority
- Anything submitted by customers or third parties that we cannot independently attribute to a public source
Conflict policy
Claimed profiles and paid listings do not influence the Verification Score. An operator who has claimed their profile may supply additional information (such as updated pricing), which enters the pipeline as an “operator-supplied” observation — subject to the same quality gates as any other source. The claimed status itself is shown as a separate badge and has no direct effect on the numerical score.
This policy exists to prevent a conflict of interest between editorial integrity and any future commercial relationship with operators.
Correction route
If you believe a component of your Verification Score is incorrect — for example, if our price data is out of date or a licence observation is misattributed — please use the correction request form. We aim to review operator-submitted evidence within 5 business days. Accepted corrections update the relevant observation and trigger a score recomputation the same night.
Version history
v1.0 — 2025-05-08
Initial release. Six-component weighted formula as described above.