Nobody buys a ranking. Ever.
Edmonton Top 10 makes money from advertising. That is exactly why the line between what we sell and what we rank has to be visible from across the room.
- 01
Rankings are never for sale
No business can pay to appear on a Top 10 list, to rank higher on one, or to have a competitor removed. There is no package that does this, and there is no column in our database that could carry it. Advertising and editorial are held by different people and enforced by different permissions.
- 02
Paid placement is labelled and separated
A Featured Business sits outside the numbered list, uses a different colour and border, carries a mono “Paid” chip, and states in plain words that it was not considered for the ranking. It never uses our editorial accent colour, never carries a rank numeral and never uses the word “best”.
- 03
We pay our own way
We pay for the meals, the haircuts and the service calls we write about. Where we cannot pay — a service that must be booked in a customer’s home, for example — we say so on the list.
- 04
Every list says how it was made
Each Top 10 carries a methodology section: how many businesses were considered, what was measured, and what disqualified a business. If you cannot tell how we decided, we have not finished the list.
- 05
We review, and we date the review
Lists carry a “last reviewed” date, not just a publication date. A list that has not been checked recently says so. Businesses close, prices move and staff change; a list that pretends otherwise is not useful.
- 06
Corrections are welcome and fast
Anyone can flag an error on any page. Corrections that change a ranking are recorded in an internal audit log with who changed what and when.
- 07
No invented ratings
We do not publish star ratings we did not collect, review counts we cannot verify, or structured data that claims either. Search engines and AI assistants read the same facts a reader does.
You can buy more exposure. You cannot buy a better rank.
If anyone tells you otherwise — including someone claiming to represent us — we want to know about it.