How listings are built

Where the listings come from

Listings come from three public sources, and owners can add their own business. Every listing says where it came from, in the card under its phone number.

The federal USDOT registry

Many listings start as a record in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) company census. That's the public registry of companies holding a USDOT number, which the U.S. Department of Transportation requires of companies that run commercial vehicles. We include active registrations whose company name points to concrete or paving work, with words like “concrete”, “paving”, “asphalt” or “sealcoating”, and leave out ready-mix and supply companies and names that point to concrete cutting, sawing or pumping rather than driveways and flatwork.

State license lists

Some states license concrete or paving contractors and publish the list. We read the lists from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nevada, New York, Texas, Virginia and Washington. A business on one of those lists that matched no other source has a listing of its own, marked “Listed from a state license list”. It shows the name and town the list gives, with a phone number where the list has one, and the list's entry: the agency, the license number, the class and the status, a link to the agency's own search, and the date we read it. A list entry with neither a phone number nor a street address doesn't make a listing until its owner adds one.

Google Business Profiles

Plenty of concrete and paving contractors aren't on a list we could read. To find them we searched Google's business listings for concrete and paving contractors, in the counties with the most contractors on a state list or the registry, and in a sample of other counties. A result that matched a business already found added its Google details to that listing. A result that matched nothing became a listing of its own, marked “Listed from Google Business Profile”, when Google files it under Concrete contractor, Paving contractor or Asphalt contractor.

Those listings show the name, address, phone number and website on the Google profile, and the rating and review count under the rule below. A profile with no street address is listed only where we could place it in a county by its own address.

A Google listing that matches no license list or registration, has no website of its own (or one named for another place), has fewer than 3 reviews and whose name is only a place and the trade (“Concrete Contractor Springfield”) is held back until its owner claims it or a person here checks it, since names like that are often lead services rather than local businesses.

A business that does concrete or paving work and appears in none of these sources won't be here until it's added. If that's you, add your business.

Added by their owners

A business in none of these sources can add itself. We check its phone number with a call that reads out a code, and a person here reviews the listing before it's published. These listings are marked “Added by the owner” and show what the owner sent us: the name, phone number, town and the jobs it takes, with a street address and website where they gave one. The owner manages the listing from then on, like any verified owner.

One listing per business

A business is often listed more than once, from more than one source or more than one registration. We show it once. Two listings in the same county are the same business when:

they share a phone number, and their names share a word that says which business it is, like a family name, not only a word for what it does;
they share a website of their own, not a page on Facebook, Yelp or a site like them;
they share a street number and street in the same ZIP code, and their names share a word as above;
they share a whole street address, suite or unit included, their names share a word as above (or one's registered name or the person on its license does), and either one is known to us only from Google while the other comes from a registry or a license list, or one's registered name is the other's name; or
they're in the same town or ZIP code and their names are the same once endings like LLC or Inc are set aside, or nearly the same where one of them has no phone number.

A phone number or website on 5 or more of our listings, as a franchise's or a call center's is, never joins listings, and nor does a phone number we don't show or an address on 5 or more of our listings. Apart from a shared street address, two listings with different phone numbers of their own stay apart, and so does any listing its owner has claimed. Two listings claimed by different owners always stay apart. The listing we keep is the one from the registry where there is one, then one with a license entry, then one with a Google profile, then the older one. It takes the other's Google profile and license entries, and the other's page sends you to it.

Where a business has a Google profile, the listing shows the phone number on the profile. Otherwise it shows the state list's, and otherwise the registration's. A number on unrelated businesses, or one that can't exist, isn't shown: the listing says “No phone on record” instead.

What a listing shows

The business name. We use the trade name (DBA) on the registration unless it's generic, like “Concrete and Paving”, in which case we use the legal name.
The phone number, and the address where the Google profile, the state's list or the registration gives one.
A state license entry, where one matched.
For a registered company, the USDOT number, registration status and the year it first registered.
A map of the ZIP code area, where the listing has a ZIP code. Maps are placed at the center of the ZIP code, not at the street address.

If a detail isn't on the record, we leave it out. We don't fill gaps with guesses, stock descriptions or placeholder text.

Verified owners

A business owner can claim a listing by entering a code we send to the contact details on the company's USDOT registration, or by sending details we check by hand. A listing built from a state license list or a Google Business Profile gets its code at the phone on the license record or the profile, and one with no phone we can use is checked by hand. Verified listings are marked “Verified owner”.

A claim link we email to an address the business publishes (the one on its USDOT registration or listing, or one on its own website's domain) verifies you when you press the button on the page it opens, and it works one time.

Verified owners can change the name, phone, address, website and services shown, and add hours, photos and a short description. Text under “From the owner” is written by the business, not by us. The USDOT number, registration status and registration year always come from the federal record.

Google ratings

For some businesses we show a star rating and review count from their Google Business Profile, labelled “via Google”. We only show them when there are at least 3 reviews, and we never copy review text. A business owner can ask us to hide their rating. Where we hold a link to the profile, the listing has a “See reviews on Google” link so you can read the reviews at the source.

Counties and ranking

A county gets its own page once it has at least 5 listed contractors, counting every source, and keeps it until it has fewer than 3. Search engines are asked to index a county page from 15 listings, and it stays indexed until it has fewer than 10, so one listing merged or taken off doesn't change it. Businesses in counties with fewer listings are listed on their state page, and each has its own listing page.

Listings are shown in three groups: Pro listings first (Pro is a paid plan for listing owners), then other listings whose owners have claimed and verified them, then everyone else. Within each group, driveway contractors are listed in the order below. When you sort by ZIP code or town, listings are grouped by distance, and the same three groups apply within each distance group, nearest first.

A Google rating of 4.0 or higher from at least 3 reviews, weighted by how many reviews stand behind it, highest first. Each rating counts as if it started with 20 reviews at 4.5, so a few reviews move it only a little: 5.0 from 6 reviews scores 4.6, and 4.9 from 11,000 scores 4.9.
The review count, where two businesses have the same score.
For registered companies, larger fleets, by number of vehicles and then drivers.
Business name, alphabetically.

A rating below 4.0 is still shown on the listing, with its review count. It just doesn't move the business up this order, so the listing sits with the ones we hold no rating for. We only use a rating to put a business ahead of another, never to push one down, because a handful of Google reviews isn't enough to say a business is worse than one nobody has reviewed at all.

Mistakes

License lists, Google profiles and registry records can all be out of date. If something on a listing is wrong, see the corrections page.

Why a listing is listed for a job

A contractor is listed for a service when its owner picked the service, when its Google Business Profile category names it, when its own website lists it, when its license names it, when city permits show that work, when its website address names it, or when its business name does. A service page lists only the listings tagged for its job, and each listing's page says which jobs it's listed for.

How distances are measured

When you sort a list from a ZIP code or a town, each company's distance runs to that ZIP code's Census point, or to the town's Census centre (the middle of its listings where the Census has no place by that name). A company's own location counts where its listing shows a street; otherwise its ZIP code's Census point stands in, and its row says “about”. No list names a distance past 25 miles: companies farther away are grouped under “More than 25 miles”, and those with no location at all come last, under “Distance unknown”.

A county's neighbours page lists companies based in the counties that border it, each within 10 miles of one of its ZIP codes, measured to the nearest of those ZIP codes' Census points. A company is listed in the county its address or pin is in.

City pages

A listing is on a town's page when its address is in the town. A listing that shows no street is there too when its license list address names the town, or when its own Google pin sits inside the town, no other Google profile shares that pin, and at least three listings there show a street. The page lists them in the county page's order.

Public records on a listing

A listing can show public records beside the details it's built from. Each record names its source where it's shown, and a field the source leaves blank drops its sentence. A record says what a business holds, not how good its work is.

The federal record

For a listing with a USDOT number, the FMCSA company census gives:

Whether the company runs across state lines or within its state
Its drivers and power units
Its vehicles by type, and whether they're owned or leased
The miles it reported for one of the last three years
The kinds of cargo it says it hauls that fit this trade
Its MC number
The month it last updated its registration

FMCSA's inspection file gives how many roadside inspections it had in the last 24 months and the date of the latest, shown with FMCSA's own note on reading inspection data. We don't show crashes, out-of-service orders or safety ratings.

License records

For a license on a state list, the card gives the expiry and every class the list shows for it.

For a license from California, Washington or Oregon we also read the licensing body's own records, by license number only: the Contractors State License Board, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries and the Oregon Construction Contractors Board. They give the status in the body's own words, the expiry and classes, and the bond, insurance and workers' comp the body lists. A suspended license isn't shown.

Business registrations and certifications

Some listings show a record from one of these:

The business registries of New York, Colorado, Oregon, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Texas and Iowa
SAM.gov, the federal government's register of businesses that can bid on its contracts
Connecticut's demolition licenses
The Oregon and Florida transportation departments' lists of prequalified contractors

We show one only where the business's name, with words like Inc or LLC, and its town are exactly the record's, and only while the record is current. A state's own list shows only on a business in that state.

Building permits

Some listings show the building permits their contractor pulled since 2023, from these city and county portals:

San Francisco Department of Building Inspection
San Diego County Planning & Development Services
Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety
NYC Department of Buildings
Marin County Community Development Agency
City of Fort Lauderdale Development Services Department
Miami-Dade County Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources
City and County of Sacramento
Chicago Department of Buildings
Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections
City of Austin Development Services Department
Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections
City of Anaheim Planning and Building Department
City of Bellevue Development Services
City of Everett Permit Services
City of Elk Grove Building Safety and Inspection
City of Saint Paul Department of Safety and Inspections
City of Kansas City, Missouri, City Planning and Development
City of Orlando Permitting Services
City of Detroit Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department
City of Somerville Inspectional Services
City of San José
New York City Department of Buildings
City of Raleigh
City of Boulder Planning and Development Services
City of Tyler
City of Denton Building Safety
City of Las Vegas
City of Henderson Development Services Center
City of Leesburg
City of New Orleans Safety and Permits
City of Buffalo Department of Permit and Inspection Services
City of Cambridge Inspectional Services and Department of Public Works
Collin Central Appraisal District
City of Dallas Public Works
City of Cincinnati
City of Baton Rouge and Parish of East Baton Rouge
City of Norfolk Public Works
Cook County Department of Environment and Sustainability
City of Cleveland Department of Building and Housing
City of Chattanooga
Brunswick County
City of Columbus Department of Building and Zoning Services
City of Minneapolis Construction Code Services
Metro Nashville Codes Administration
City of Miami Building Department
New Hanover County Planning and Land Use
City of Greensboro Engineering and Inspections
City of Bend
City of Naperville
Alachua County Growth Management
City and County of Denver Community Planning and Development
City of Medford
City of Pittsburgh Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections
City of San Antonio Development Services
Town of Cary Inspections and Permits
City of Asheville Development Services

A permit is matched by license number where the portal gives one. Otherwise it's matched only by the contractor's exact business name, and never by a name that's only a person's name, only initials, or only trade and place words. County pages show this trade's permits from the last 12 months. We never show a homeowner's name or address, or what the work cost.

We never show complaints, violations, citations, wage cases or debarments, or personal details such as birth dates or home addresses.