How these lists get built (and what I will not do for money)

I started this site because I was tired of sending the same three text messages. A friend needs a plumber. Someone at work wants a day spa voucher for their mum. My sister-in-law is trying to find a wedding photographer who is not booked out until the following spring. Every time, I would search, get annoyed at what came back, then just tell them the two places I already knew about.

Search "best day spa Adelaide" and you get roughly three kinds of result. National directories that have never set foot in South Australia. Pages where every single listing is paid, with no disclosure anywhere. And auto-generated lists that scraped Google reviews and reworded them into something that reads like it was written by a machine at 3am, because it was.

So this is the version I wanted to exist. It is not perfect. But the process is written down, which is more than most of them will do.

What actually gets a business onto a list

Every guide publishes its own methodology box, because the bar for a plumber is not the bar for a cafe. A four star cafe is fine. A four star emergency plumber means several people had a bad night. But the shared process runs like this.

1. 01Build a long list from Google, local Facebook groups, council business directories and whoever people in that suburb actually name when you ask them.
2. 02Check reviews across the last twelve months rather than the lifetime average. A business that was excellent in 2021 under different ownership is not useful to you now.
3. 03Look for a real quote process. If I cannot work out roughly what a business charges within about thirty seconds on their site or over the phone, neither can you. That goes in the notes.
4. 04For anything licensed (plumbing, gas, electrical, health, aged care), confirm the registration is current with the relevant body. An expired licence removes a business immediately, no exceptions.
5. 05Write the entry from what I can verify, then note plainly whether I have been there myself or whether the entry is built from public information.

What I check, what I deliberately ignore

Where the money comes from

Two places, both of which you can see on the page.

• Display advertising. The standard ad units between sections. Google decides what appears in them, not me. They are not a recommendation of anything.
• One featured slot per list, tagged Featured and disclosed in a callout at the top of every guide. A featured business pays a small monthly fee for the top position.

The important part of that second one: paying for the featured slot does not get a business onto the list. They have to clear the same bar as everyone else first. If a featured business slides below standard, they come off and the slot reopens. That has to be true or the whole site is worthless, including to the businesses paying for it.

What I will not do

• Take money to add a business to a list it does not qualify for.
• Take money to move a business up the order.
• Take money to remove a competitor.
• Accept a written review in exchange for payment or a free service.
• Publish a rating, a review count or a price I have not seen with my own eyes. If a number is not verifiable, it does not go on the page. This is why some entries have less detail than others.

A recommendation you can buy is not a recommendation. It is an ad wearing a costume.

The rule this site runs on

When I get it wrong

I will. Businesses change hands. A great chef leaves. A trades outfit grows too fast and the quality drops. Every guide carries a last updated date at the top so you can see how stale you are looking at. Every list gets a full re-check on a rolling basis.

If something on here is out of date or flat wrong, tell me. The contact form goes to a real inbox that I read. Corrections get made and the updated date changes so you can tell something moved.