Transparency builds trust. Here is exactly how we rank places, moderate reviews, and keep the platform honest.
Every place on Placemarks is ranked by a transparent algorithm based on verified visitor ratings, review volume, and recency. Businesses cannot pay to rank higher in search results or city pages. Featured listings are clearly labelled and never affect organic ranking order.
Visitors rate places on a 1–5 star scale. The overall score is a simple average of all ratings. We display both the average and the total number of reviews so you can judge confidence. A place with 4.8 from 50 reviews tells a different story than 5.0 from one.
Every review is subject to our community guidelines. We remove reviews that contain hate speech, spam, or obviously fake content. We never remove a negative review simply because a business owner asked us to. Verified Visit badges indicate the reviewer marked the place as visited before leaving their review.
When a user marks a place as visited and later writes a review, that review earns a Verified Visit badge. This helps readers distinguish between first-hand experiences and second-hand opinions. It is not a guarantee of authenticity, but it is a meaningful trust signal.
Active contributors earn points for adding places, writing reviews, and uploading photos. These points determine contributor tiers (Explorer, Guide, Ambassador) which are displayed alongside their reviews. Trust scores are calculated from account age, review consistency, and community engagement — they are never for sale.
City pages and category pages sort places by a composite score: average rating weighted by review count and recency. Places with more recent, detailed reviews naturally surface higher. We do not penalise new places — they simply need to earn ratings from real visitors.
We collect only what is necessary to run the platform. Your reviews are public, but your visits, saved collections, and personal details are private by default. We do not sell personal data to third parties. Read our full privacy policy for details.
We are always happy to explain our processes. Reach out any time.