About Bestopedia

Every licensed business has an official government record, including its license standing, discipline history, and insurance coverage. The record is public, but it is published one entry at a time and requires knowing which business to look up. Bestopedia is an independent publisher that compiles these records into profiles and rankings a consumer can read before hiring, with every fact linked to its government source.

Coverage

Bestopedia publishes a profile for every licensed business in each category it covers, together with ranked lists of providers and a verification status for each business. Coverage began in 2026 with California’s licensed construction trades. Categories are added where the cost of a wrong choice is high and an authoritative public record exists to check providers against.

Sources and methodology

Profile data comes from the official records of the government body that regulates each category, and every profile shows the date its record was last updated. Record formats differ by category and by jurisdiction, so each category is scored by rules built for its own record. The ranking methodology is published in full at Methodology, and any score on the site can be recomputed from the same public records. The rules that determine each verification status are published at How We Verify.

Funding

Bestopedia is free to read. The site requires no account and does not collect or sell reader contact information. Revenue comes from services sold to the businesses it lists, and the separation between that revenue and the site’s scores and rankings is documented at Editorial Independence.

Contact

Bestopedia can be reached at hello@bestopedia.com. If any fact on a profile does not match the official record, it is re-checked against the source.