How we rank, how we verify, what we refuse to do.

Ranking

Clinic search results are ordered by a transparent formula:

• Rating × log(review volume) — a 4.8 with 400 reviews beats a 5.0 with 3.
• Would-do-again % — our headline outcome metric, because "would you redo this knowing what you know now?" is harder to fake than stars.
• Verified boost — small, fixed uplift for clinics that pass editorial verification (board certifications, ISHRS/AHRS fellowship, audit history).
• Flagged-review penalty — clinics with many flagged reviews drop in ranking.

Clinics cannot pay to influence this order. Sponsored placements exist, but they are always visually labeled "Sponsored," never mixed into organic results, and capped at one per page.

Verification

Every clinic profile is in one of four states, shown honestly on the public profile:

• Verified on The Hair Library (paying) — the clinic has claimed their profile, passed editorial verification, and has billing on file for lead notifications.
• Verified on The Hair Library (free tier) — claimed and verified, but on the free plan (no active lead inbox).
• Not yet verified with The Hair Library — profile exists based on public data and/or scraped records, but the clinic hasn't claimed. We don't hide this — the label is shown on the profile.
• Opted out — clinic has explicitly asked not to receive inquiries via The Hair Library. Profile stays public with a clear label; no outreach.

Editorial verification checks

• Board certifications (ISHRS, AHRS, EBOPRAS, Trichological Society) verified against public registries.
• Licence / GST on file for Indian clinics; equivalent for international.
• Clinic phone number called to confirm existence and operating hours.
• Email domain must match the public website for self-service claims.
• Review corpus sanity-checked for obvious astroturf patterns.

Reviews & journeys

Reviews come from three sources: The Hair Library's own verified patient reviews, anonymized journey verdicts, and (labeled) reviews aggregated from public sources. Source is always shown. Clinics can respond publicly to reviews, but cannot edit or delete them. If a review violates guidelines (personal attacks, doxing, fake), it is flagged and reviewed editorially — the outcome is public on the review itself.

Patient journeys are the anchor of the platform. Every photo is server-blurred before being published; the raw image is deleted after blurring. Journeys are tied to anonymous patient codes (PATIENT-XXXX), never to real names.

How we make money

In order of revenue contribution:

1. CPL (Cost Per Lead). When a patient submits a quote request, the clinic they picked pays The Hair Library a fee. Pricing is tiered by how much information the patient gave us — warm leads (with Norwood stage + budget + city) are priced higher than cold leads.
2. Affiliate commissions on products like minoxidil and finasteride, disclosed near every "buy" link.
3. Clinic subscriptions for analytics and lead-management tools (Basic ₹999/mo → Enterprise ₹9,999/mo). Subscriptions buy tools, never ranking influence.
4. Display ads below the fold on general content pages. Never on patient journey detail pages — those stay clean.
5. Sponsored placements on specific city/procedure pages, always labeled.

What we refuse to do

• We will never accept money to change a clinic's ranking.
• We will never edit or delete reviews because a clinic asked.
• We will never sell patient contact data to anyone the patient didn't explicitly select.
• We will never expand beyond hair restoration.
• We will never publish a patient's un-blurred photos, regardless of consent — the privacy policy is absolute.

Corrections

Find something wrong? Every data card has a Report inaccuracy link that goes to editorial. We review flags within 72 hours. If we made a mistake, we fix it, and (for material corrections) note the change publicly.