Reviews on HomeGuideIS help homeowners choose professionals and help businesses earn trust the honest way. This policy explains how reviews work, the standards they must meet, and how we handle disputes. It applies to all reviews of professionals listed on our marketplace.
Who Can Review
Reviews should come from people with genuine first-hand experience of the business’s services. We may ask reviewers to confirm their experience and may use technical and behavioral signals to detect abuse. One review per experience, please — multiple accounts or coordinated review campaigns violate this policy.
What Reviews Must Be
- Truthful: based on real experience. Fabricated positive or negative reviews are prohibited.
- Independent: reviewers may not be paid, offered discounts, or given anything of value in exchange for a review. Incentivized reviews are allowed only if the incentive was offered without regard to sentiment and the reviewer clearly discloses it — undisclosed incentivized reviews are removed.
- Relevant and civil: focused on the service experience. Hate speech, threats, harassment, and publication of private personal information are prohibited.
- First-hand: no hearsay. Do not review a business you have not personally hired or interacted with as a customer.
Conflicts of Interest
Business owners, employees, and their relatives may not review their own business. Competitors may not post reviews intended to damage a rival. Marketers and reputation services may not post on behalf of clients. Violations are removed and accounts may be suspended.
Moderation
Reviews are screened for policy compliance, not sentiment. Negative reviews stay up when they meet these standards — we do not remove reviews because a business dislikes them. Reviews are edited or removed only for policy violations, legal requirements, or demonstrated factual errors involving private matters. Star ratings reflect the genuine average of qualifying reviews; nothing else.
Business Responses
Businesses may post one public response per review. Responses must be professional and factual — no harassment of reviewers, no disclosure of private customer information. A measured response to criticism builds more trust than a perfect score ever will.
Disputes and Appeals
If you believe a review violates this policy — as a reviewer, consumer, or business — email [email protected] with the subject line “Review Dispute,” the review URL, and the specific policy provision you believe is violated. We investigate and respond. Businesses may also request factual corrections to reviews under our Corrections Policy where a review contains demonstrably false factual claims.
No Pay-to-Play
Reviews cannot be bought, sold, or filtered by payment. Advertising relationships never influence review outcomes, as described in our Advertising Disclosure. We do not sell review removal.
Changes
We may update this policy and will post changes here. Questions: [email protected].