Data quality and license checks

We only rank contractors that pass Entity QA. Placeholder contact data and unmatched license records fail the gate. Paid plans never change a score.

Entity QA rules

• No placeholder phones. Numbers that use example or reserved patterns (including 555 exchange patterns common in fiction/docs) fail QA. The listing is not ranked until a real public contact field matches other public sources, with an as-of date.
• DPOR match. Legal name / license number / status must match Virginia DPOR (or the unlocked Layer A source for that jurisdiction). Unmatched rows stay unscored or off the ranked list.
• N/A is not zero. Missing inputs are labeled unverified / N/A — we don't silently treat them as zeros to inflate a score.
• Sources dated. Each scored fact shows source + date checked.

Public contractor ranking sites sometimes show 555-style placeholder phones on high-ranked cards. We treat that pattern as a QA fail, not a feature.