Methodology

Methodology & sources

Every listing is assembled from public information and each firm's own website. Nothing here is invented.

Sources

• Firm records — public industry and company datasets, national business registers and open corporate data.
• Places — the Overture Maps Foundation places dataset, which incorporates OpenStreetMap data, used under the Open Database License (ODbL). Name, address, telephone and website are shown as published there.
• Contact details, people, technology — each firm's own public website (homepage, team, about and contact pages), read by an automated crawler.
• Domain classification — public DNS zone files, sorted into industry buckets by keyword and top-level domain.

How a page is built

1. A firm or place enters the directory from a public dataset for its trade.
2. Where a website exists, it is crawled; names, emails, LinkedIn profiles and the tools it runs are recorded only where they are publicly published.
3. A page is generated only when there is real data behind it. Thin or unverified pages are not indexed.
4. Pages are rebuilt regularly; the “edition set” date reflects the latest rebuild.

What the Herald does not do

No bought or sold reviews, no ranking by payment, and no personal data beyond what a firm has itself put on its own site. To correct, flag or remove a listing, contact the desk.