Editorial standards and directory methodology

Where listings come from

Most shops in this directory were added by us, not by them. We build listings from publicly available business information: a shop's own website, its public Google Business Profile, and public trade and show listings. Nobody has to ask to be included, and nobody pays to be included.

The rest arrive two other ways. A shop owner can submit their business, or claim the listing we already built for them, and edit it from there. Either way the listing is ours to correct and ours to remove.

What we verify, and what we only display

We verify that a business exists, that it is in the coin, bullion, or precious-metals trade rather than a pawn shop or jeweler that occasionally buys silver, and that its address and phone number resolve. We check the website link and remove or repair dead ones.

We do not independently verify hours, services, specialties, or anything else a shop says about itself. Those fields come from public sources or from the owner, and they can be out of date. Call ahead before you drive somewhere, especially to an appointment-only dealer.

Ratings and review counts are Google's, not ours. They are labeled as Google's wherever they appear, they link back to the source, and they are refreshed monthly. We do not run our own star ratings and we have never written a review of a shop. If a rating is missing we say so rather than filling the gap.

How shops are ordered on a page

Ordering is not a quality judgment and we will not pretend otherwise. On directory and location pages, shops sort by listing tier first (Featured, then Enhanced, then Claimed, then unclaimed), then by whether the shop itself signed up rather than being placed by us, then by whether the listing has a real photograph, then by how recently it was added, then alphabetically.

So a paid tier does move a shop up the page. That is what the tier buys, and it is why it is labeled on the card rather than hidden.

What “best rated” means when we say it

When a page names the top-rated shops in a city or state, that is computed from Google ratings with a floor of 15 reviews, ranked by rating and then by review volume. The floor exists so a single five-star review cannot outrank a shop with two hundred.

Paid placement has no effect on that calculation. A Featured shop that does not clear the review floor does not get named, and an unclaimed shop with strong reviews does.

What money can and cannot buy

Paid tiers buy presentation and position: a larger card, photos, a longer profile, contact buttons, and a higher slot in the ordering described above.

They do not buy a rating, a review, a mention in a guide, inclusion in a “top rated” list, or protection from removal. No shop has ever paid us to be written about, and we do not accept payment for editorial coverage. Advertising on this site is served by third parties and is labeled as advertising.

How the location pages are written

Every city, state, and category page assembles its text from our own listing data at build time: how many shops we list there, how many carry ratings and across how many reviews, how many buy gold and silver, handle estates, appraise, or submit coins for grading, how the ratings are spread, and which specialties come up most.

Because each sentence only appears when the number behind it is worth reporting, two neighboring cities describe different things rather than reading as one template with the name swapped. Nothing on those pages is invented, and none of it is generated prose.

How the guides are written

Guides are written and signed by a named person, not an anonymous team, and the byline links to a page explaining that person's background. Claims about grading, metal content, tax, or dealer practice are checked against a current authoritative source rather than stated from memory, and the guides link out to those sources.

We publish real, hedged ranges or nothing. We do not invent statistics, prices, premiums, ratings, reviews, or testimonials. Guides are neutral toward every shop in the directory.

Which pages we ask search engines to index

A shop profile is only submitted to search engines once it carries something we or its owner added: a verified claim, or a photograph we sourced ourselves. Profiles that are still just public contact details stay on the site for visitors, but are marked no-index so we are not filling search results with pages that repeat what is already on a map.

Location pages need at least three listings before we ask for them to be indexed, because below that there is nothing to compare. Both rules reverse themselves automatically as a page gains real content.

Corrections and removal

If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it. Owners can claim a listing to edit it directly, and any shop can ask to be removed from the directory entirely, with no requirement to explain why.

When we correct a guide after publication, we correct the guide itself rather than quietly deleting it.