Review policy
Reviews written on this site come from verified clients. We also show ratings agencies have on other sites. Google reviews fetched from an agency's Google profile and published by our editors count in the Rankyfy Score like reviews written here; they are labelled and are not verified by us. Ratings from other sites do not count. A person reads every review written here within 48 hours, negative reviews are published, and nothing is removed for being negative.
Who can write a review
A client of the agency whose project ended within the last 24 months. Past clients count if they go through the same verification as everyone else; old testimonials are never pasted in. Staff, owners, contractors and family of the agency cannot review it. Competitors cannot review it.
Each review covers one project. The reviewer states the service, project type, budget band, duration and end date, rates quality, schedule, value and communication from 1 to 5, says whether they would recommend the agency, and writes at least 60 words on the challenge, the work and the results.
How we verify a review
- Work email. The reviewer confirms a one-time code sent to a work email address. The agency's own domain is rejected outright. Free-mail addresses (Gmail, Yahoo and similar) are accepted but held for manual checks, and they never count toward the US-client badge.
- LinkedIn. As an alternative, the reviewer links a LinkedIn profile that matches the company and title they gave.
- In-depth verified. A 10-minute call with a Rankyfy analyst earns the "In-depth verified by call" label.
- US client. A review counts as a US client only when the work-email domain or the LinkedIn company is a US business. That count is shown separately on lists where it matters, such as the outsourcing lists for India.
The verification method appears on every published review, so readers can see how much weight to give it.
Fraud checks
Before a person reads it, every review is screened for: a device or network shared with the agency's staff; an email domain equal to the agency's domain; bursts of reviews in a short time; text that is near-duplicate of another review or looks machine-written; disposable email addresses; one reviewer praising many competing agencies. Flagged reviews go to the front of the moderation queue with the evidence attached.
Moderation
- A moderator reads every review before it goes live, within 48 hours of submission.
- Reviews are approved, rejected with a reason code, or sent back with a request for proof (an invoice, a contract or a report).
- Negative reviews are published. Nothing is removed for being negative.
- We remove reviews that are not about a real project, that name private individuals, that contain threats or slurs, or that turn out to be from the agency or a competitor.
- A rejected reviewer can appeal once through the contact page. Appeals are acknowledged within 24 hours and decided within 15 days.
What agencies can and cannot do
- Reply publicly to any review. Replies are shown under the review and are also moderated.
- Dispute a review with evidence. While a dispute is open the review stays visible and the agency's score is frozen.
- Invite every client to review through the dashboard kit. Inviting only happy clients is review gating and breaks this policy and the FTC rule.
- Agencies cannot edit, hide, reorder or delete reviews, and cannot choose which reviews appear on their profile.
- Agencies may not pay, discount, gift or otherwise reward anyone for a review. Reviewers are never rewarded by Rankyfy either.
Review manipulation leads to a score freeze and a public notice on the profile. Repeated or organised manipulation suspends the profile and removes it from every list.
How reviews are shown
Profiles show the adjusted rating with its review count, the rating distribution, the four sub-ratings, the share who would recommend, and each review's verification method. The default order is most recent first, and that is stated on the page. Reviewer names are shown as first name and last initial. Rating markup for search engines is generated only from reviews collected here, never from imported ratings, and never for the Rankyfy Score itself.
How reviews feed the score, including the adjusted average, is explained in How we rank.
The rules we build to
- United States: the FTC rule on fake reviews and testimonials (2024). It bans fake reviews, payment tied to sentiment, undisclosed insider reviews and review suppression.
- United Kingdom: the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (2025), which requires publishers to prevent, detect and remove fake reviews.
- European Union: the Omnibus Directive, which requires us to say whether and how we verify that reviews come from real customers. This page is that statement.
- India: BIS IS 19000:2022 on online reviews, adopted as our house standard.
Reviewer data
We store a hash of the reviewer's email address and network details for fraud checks, not the address itself in the published review. Reviewers can ask for their review to be removed or their data deleted through the contact page.