Editorial policy

1. A free marketplace

QuoteZila is a free marketplace for local services. QuoteZila is free for customers and local businesses. A customer describes a job, matched local businesses can send quotes, and the customer chooses who to hire. QuoteZila does not carry out the work. Any agreement for the work is between the customer and the business.

We don't check insurance, qualifications or registrations, so please check these yourself before you hire.

2. Guidance, not professional or legal advice

The advice pages, the guides and the cost guides are guidance, not advice. They are general information to help you describe a job, ask useful questions and compare quotes. They are not professional or legal advice, and they are not a quote for your own job. A page cannot tell you which business to hire, and it cannot tell you that a price is right for your house.

The pages do not show reviews or ratings, and they do not invent QuoteZila user numbers.

3. Who the pages are from

Advice, guide and cost-guide pages show the byline "QuoteZila editorial team", with a link to this policy. That name is the team. It is not a person. No page names an individual author, and no page lists a job title or a qualification for the writing.

In the structured data, the author of an advice page, a guide or a cost guide is the QuoteZila organisation. The pages do not set a reviewedBy property. They do not use a review, a rating or a person as the author.

4. Where the information comes from

A claim that needs a source is taken from an official or other published page, and the page names that source. The build only allows links and sources from a fixed list of public bodies and similar publishers. That list includes gov.uk, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Gas Safe Register, NICEIC, NAPIT, Electrical Safety First, Citizens Advice, the Planning Portal, TrustMark, FENSA, WaterSafe, HETAS, OFTEC, MCS, the NHS and similar.

A source has to be an https page, and the page records the date it was read. The build refuses a host that is not on the list, and a host the list rejects. It also refuses a link to a competitor quote site.

A citation says only what that source says. A sentence that is not taken from a source is left as a plain sentence, with no source tag. If the only place a fact appears is a source the list does not allow, the fact is left out.

5. Figures and prices

A price in the text needs a source tag, and the tag points at a row for that page. The build refuses a price that does not have two dated public sources, or one source on gov.uk. Where a price has no allowed source, that page is not built. A percentage, a count or a duration stated as fact is written with a source tag. The build checks prices. It does not run the same check on those other figures.

6. Facts about QuoteZila

Statements about QuoteZila itself, such as the free line on this page, come from the product rather than from an outside publisher. On the page they are labelled as a QuoteZila product fact. They are not presented as a finding from another organisation.

7. How dates work

Each advice page, guide and cost guide has a last reviewed date and a last modified date. The page shows the last reviewed date. If the words were changed after that date, the page also shows a last updated date, and it keeps the last reviewed date beside it. When the two dates are the same, only the last reviewed date is shown.

The structured data always includes dateModified, set to the last modified date. A cost guide also includes datePublished. That is the published date when the page has one, and otherwise the same last modified date. The XML sitemap uses the last modified date for an advice page, a guide or a cost guide. It is not the clock time of the build. The review date in the manifest cannot be in the future, and the last modified date cannot be later than that review date. A published page whose last reviewed date is more than 365 days old is not built.

Each outside source listed at the bottom of a page names the publisher, the URL, and the date that source was read.

8. Updates

When a page changes, the last modified date is set to the day of that change. When the page is read through again, the last reviewed date is set to that day as well. The date on the page, the structured data and the sitemap then use the new day. The build also checks that the questions and answers in the structured data match the questions and answers on the page, and that dateModified matches the last modified date. A page where those do not match is not published.

9. Corrections

If a page is wrong, the page is edited and the dates in the section above are brought into line with that edit. The build leaves out a page that fails its checks. That includes a price that does not meet the source rule above, a source with no date for when it was read, a source that is not https, a source whose host is not allowed, a page marked as regulated that does not link the official register for that topic, and structured data that does not match the visible questions and answers.

On gas, electrical work, structural work, asbestos and work at height, the pages do not give steps for doing the work yourself. A page marked with one of those topics links the official register, such as the Gas Safe Register, the electrical registers, building control or HSE. The build refuses a marked page that does not include that link.

If you see a mistake, email contact@quotezila.com or use the contact page. We read every message and reply as soon as we can.

See also the about page, the FAQ, the terms and the privacy policy.