UniverseRankHow the UniverseRank Score works
Money is not an input. There is no code path from a payment to a score. A company that buys a sponsored placement appears in a sponsored placement. It does not become "#1", because selling something that looks like an independent rating would be misleading, quite apart from making the rating worthless.
Six components, each of which we will explain to the company it describes. 16,054 companies currently carry a score.
| Component | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Verification | 30% | What has actually been checked, by which authority, and whether the check has lapsed. A verification that expired is not counted. |
| Customer reviews | 25% | Published reviews, shrunk toward the platform average so three glowing reviews do not outrank two hundred good ones. Reviews tied to an introduction we brokered count for more. |
| Corporate standing | 20% | Active corporate registration, how long the company has been incorporated, and current regulatory licences. |
| Responsiveness | 10% | Whether the company answers the people who contact it, and how quickly. Measured, not self-reported. |
| Freshness | 10% | How recently any of the above was last confirmed. Full marks inside thirty days, nothing after a year. |
| Profile completeness | 5% | How much of the profile is actually filled in. |
What cannot move it
- Buying a sponsored placement, at any price.
- Buying rank in a market. That is advertising and it is labelled as advertising.
- Asking us. There is no commercial path to a higher score and our sales side has no permission to change one.
- Removing a bad review. Reviews cannot be deleted, reordered or buried by spending.
What can move it
- Completing verification. Registration, licences, insurance, address.
- Earning reviews from real customers.
- Answering the people who contact you, and answering them quickly.
- Keeping the profile current, so freshness does not decay.
Adjustments
A score can be adjusted by hand only through a recorded, reasoned, expiring entry approved by a ranking administrator. Whoever sells advertising cannot make one: the role that touches money and the role that touches rankings are separate, and neither includes the other.
Two different things on one page
Where you see a organic label, money had no part in it. Where you see Sponsored or paid, somebody paid for that position and we say so plainly. We will not merge the two into a single number.
Last updated 2026-08-24.