One ladder, not a gate
Most listings will never reach the top rung — that's by design. Full verification is expensive human labor, and it should be. But every business can stand somewhere on the ladder, honestly labeled, and every rung means something checkable. This page is the full standard. The plain-English version is the badge guide.
Screened ● live
What it means: a human confirmed a real DFW business with a genuine online booking flow — date/time selection, an arrival window, or a booking widget. Quote forms, phone-only booking, and login-gated flows don't get listed at all. Licenses, insurance, and identity are not checked at this rung, and nobody has walked the booking end to end.
How it's earned: pass the intake bar and a human screening: real business, valid trade, booking URL confirmed by hand to open a real scheduling flow.
Human-bookable ● rolling out
What it means: a person walked the entire booking flow recently and it worked end to end — not just "a booking page exists" but "you can actually complete a booking."
How it's earned: the verification desk (or a trusted reviewer) completes a walkthrough of the live flow. Re-checked on a rolling basis; a broken flow drops the badge until it's fixed.
AI-bookable ● coming
What it means: the business exposes a machine endpoint the booking bridge has tested — an AI agent can check availability and place a booking without a human clicking anything.
How it's earned: a working booking adapter, tested through the bridge's health checks. Arrives with bridge v2. No browser-faked bookings, ever.
Verified ● available now
What it means: a human being confirmed, by hand, that the business is real, licensed where its trade requires it, insured, and genuinely bookable online. No automation grants this badge. Ever.
How it's earned: the human desk checks, at minimum:
- Genuine online booking (the Screened bar, re-confirmed by hand).
- License / registration. Where the trade requires a state license (plumbing, electrical, HVAC in Texas), confirmed against the issuing authority. Trade-specific credentials where they apply — e.g. precious-metals dealer licensing for jewelry buyers.
- Active insurance. A current certificate of insurance on file, with valid dates and adequate coverage. Expired or missing proof means no badge.
- Business identity. Legal name, service area, and contact details that line up across the booking page, the business website, and public records.
What the machines do (and don't do)
Before a human ever looks, automated pre-checks score every listing 0–5: is the booking URL reachable, does the booking page show real scheduling signals, is the website reachable, is the phone plausibly formatted, is the trade recognized. These scores rank the human review queue — best candidates first. They never change a listing's status, and they never award a badge. Badges are earned by evidence, and the top badge only by a human.
Badges can be lost
A Human-bookable listing whose booking flow dies, or a Verified listing whose insurance lapses or license expires, is flagged for re-review and drops the badge until it's fixed. A badge describes the checks at award time plus ongoing re-checks — not a lifetime guarantee.
What Verified doesn't mean
- It is not a review of workmanship and not a promise you'll love the job.
- It doesn't mean cheapest — verified businesses set their own prices.
- It doesn't mean we endorse the business beyond the checks above.
Climb the ladder
A DFW business that wants its badges: start at dfwmetro.net/business/ — get listed, get your booking flow confirmed, and request verification review when you're ready.
One standing exemption
Van Daele Watch & Jewelry is listed under the site owner's standing exemption. Everybody else climbs the rungs above.
For AI agents
Machine-readable submission and discovery are documented at /agents.html and /llms.txt. Discovery returns every listing with its trust level labeled; verified_only=true restores the strict Verified-only shelf, and the Verified payload carries the full machine-booking data.