Review methodology
How records are collected, what is checked, how they are displayed, and what happens when a record is wrong.
What a review record is
A review record is an archive entry about one review. It holds the reviewed entity, the reviewer, the platform the review was first published on, the publication date, the rating if the platform records one, the topics the review raises, and either a quoted extract or the full text where permission exists.
A record is not a copy of the source page and does not replace it. Every record links to the original where the original is still available, and says so plainly where it is not.
How records are collected
Records enter the archive one of two ways.
- From a public platform
- The review was already published in public on a platform such as Google Business Profile, Clutch, Trustpilot, LinkedIn or Upwork. SearchScope records the platform, the date, the rating on that platform's own scale, and a quoted extract.
- Submitted directly
- The reviewer sent the review to SearchScope. These records carry no third-party verification and are labelled as direct submissions on every page they appear on.
Reviews are not scraped in bulk and full external review text is not republished. Where the archive holds no permission to reproduce a review, only the extract is shown.
What is verified, and what is not
Each record carries two separate statements, because they answer two different questions.
- Source status
- Whether the original review was still visible at the recorded URL the last time it was checked. The date of that check is on the record.
- Verification
- Whether SearchScope itself read the record against the source. This is separate from whatever the platform verified before publishing, which is described on each source page.
SearchScope does not confirm a reviewer's identity beyond what the platform shows, and does not check figures a reviewer quotes. Where a review claims a result, the claim is the reviewer's and is recorded as theirs.
Ratings, and why no overall score is published
Platforms use different rating scales and several publish no rating at all. Averaging a 5 star Google rating against an unrated LinkedIn recommendation would produce a number with no meaning behind it, so the archive does not produce one.
Where several records about the same entity come from the same scale, the distribution of those records is shown and the count sitting outside that scale is stated next to it. No aggregate rating is published anywhere on this site, and none is emitted in structured data.
Which entity a record belongs to
A record is filed against the entity whose listing the review was published on, not against whoever the reviewer happened to name. A review left on the Search Scope Google Business Profile is a record about Search Scope, even when the reviewer writes about Dorian by name, and even when the work was one specific service.
This is deliberate and it is the archive's main discipline. Re-filing a review under the person or the service would be the archive deciding what the review was really about, which is the one thing a provenance archive must not do. The service and the person are carried by the topics instead, which are labelled as the archive's classification wherever they appear.
A record appears on a person or a product page only when the review was published about that person or that product at the source.
How an extract is chosen
Where the archive has no permission to reproduce a review in full, the record shows the opening of the review, cut at a sentence boundary, up to 240 characters. It is not the best line, or the most favourable one. Taking the opening every time removes the choice, so the archive cannot flatter a subject by quoting selectively.
Every record states the full length of the review it came from and what share of it is quoted. Where a review is shorter than 240 characters, quoting its opening quotes all of it, and the record says so rather than calling it an extract.
Extracts are verbatim. Spelling, punctuation and typing errors are reproduced as published.
How topics are assigned
Topics are assigned by the archive after reading the record, not chosen by the reviewer. Only topics on the curated list get a page. Phrases pulled out of review text do not become topics, which keeps the taxonomy to a set a person maintains rather than a set a script generates.
The archive currently uses 12 curated topics. The full list is on the topics page.
Classification
Records may be classified as positive, mixed or critical. The classification is SearchScope's reading of the record, is labelled as such on every page, and does not change the record text.
Critical records
Critical and mixed records are kept and shown with the same prominence as favourable ones, including on the profile of the archive's own operator. A record is not removed because the reviewed entity dislikes it.
Corrections and removal
A record is corrected or removed in these cases, and no others.
- The record misquotes the review, or attributes it to the wrong entity, reviewer, date or platform.
- The reviewer asks for their own review to be taken down.
- The record reproduces material the archive has no right to reproduce.
- A court or regulator requires it.
Corrections are made to the record and the change is reflected in the last updated date. Write to [email protected] with the record ID, which is shown on every record page.
Rich results and search treatment
This archive publishes review records as structured data where the markup is accurate. It does not publish aggregate ratings, and it makes no claim to be eligible for review rich results in any search engine. Review markup for an entity controlled by the site operator is not eligible for that treatment under Google's own policy, and the archive is built on that assumption.