How We Rank Businesses

The short version

Some of the placements you see on BerksMont Business are paid advertising. Businesses can buy Featured placement, and those paid listings appear above free listings. We label Featured listings, but you should assume that a top position may be there because the business paid for it — not purely because it is "the best." The ratings and review counts we show are real and are not affected by payment.

What is paid (and how much)

We sell one paid placement tier, Featured, through a yearly subscription:

• Featured listings appear above free listings in search results and category pages. This is the most prominent placement we sell.
• Featured is $150 per year, billed yearly, with no monthly plan. Current pricing is always shown on our pricing page.
• Paid placement affects ordering. A business with an active Featured subscription will appear above non-paying businesses, regardless of their relative ratings.

In other words: a higher position is not, by itself, an endorsement. It can simply mean the business is an advertiser. This is paid placement, and we disclose it here so you can weigh listings accordingly.

What is NOT paid

• Star ratings and review counts are real. The numeric rating and the number of reviews shown on a listing are not bought, inflated, or altered by whether a business pays for Featured.
• Being listed is free. A business does not have to pay to appear in the directory at all. Claiming a listing and getting a Verified badge is also free — it confirms the business claimed and verified its listing, and it does not buy priority placement.
• Our editorial content is independent. Our town guides and blog articles are not sold; a business cannot pay to be recommended in them.

How the order is built

The list is assembled in this order:

1. Paid Featured listings fill the top positions.
2. Everyone else — including free and Verified listings — follows below, ordered by rating, review volume, and relevance to your search.

Because the top of the list can include advertisers, we encourage you to read each listing's ratings, reviews, categories, and details — not just its position — and to confirm licensing, credentials, or anything else that matters to you directly with any business before you hire or visit them.

Questions

If anything about how a listing is ranked is unclear, email us at hello@berksmontbusiness.com. You can also read more about who we are on our About page.