How search works

What decides the order of results, and what never does.

Five things are kept apart on Guide.md: relevance, verified status, profile completeness, paid plan capabilities, and labeled Featured placement. Here is exactly how each one works.

Search your name. Claim only if you want to change what it says.

Have your NPI? Search by NPI · Claiming is free · no ID for a practice or institutional email · about 2 minutes

How ordering works on Guide.md

Relevance first. Directory results and listing pages are ordered by how well a record matches what was searched: name, specialty, place, condition or procedure. The sort in use is shown on the page (Verified first, Most experience, Name A–Z).
Verified profiles list ahead of unverified records. Among equally relevant results the order is Claimed (confirmed by the provider), then Enriched (editor-curated), then registry-only records. Confirming a condition or procedure on your profile lists you among the verified providers on that page. This preference comes from verification, never from payment.
Completeness is a meter, not a rank. The completeness score is shown to the owner to guide editing; it does not change ordering.
Paid plans change what a profile can hold, not where it sits. Pro and Premium add media, FAQs, badges and listing pages, and raise how many condition and procedure pages you can confirm (10, 30, unlimited). Verified status lasts twelve months and is renewed at no cost by confirming from your account that the profile is still current; any payment renews it automatically. A paid plan never moves a profile above another verified profile.
Featured placements are labeled and separate. They are paid, marked "Featured", shown in their own slot above the results, and never change the ordering beneath them.

Search engines and AI assistants make their own ranking decisions. Nothing on Guide.md changes those; a complete, verified profile is a better source for them, not a guarantee.

The sort control is on every result page

Every search and listing page shows its sort: Verified first (the default), Most experience (years since the career start on the record, within a city or ZIP) or Name A–Z. Filters you choose — specialty, provider type, gender, distance, insurance accepted, availability and listings — narrow the set; they never reorder it beyond the sort you picked.

What "verified first" means

Three tiers, shown as labels on every card: Claimed (the provider confirmed the profile is theirs and manages it), Enriched (an editor curated it from public sources), and registry-only (the public record, untouched). Among equally relevant results they appear in that order. A condition or procedure page lists the providers who confirmed that topic on their own profile first, then the rest. Verified status lasts twelve months and is renewed free by confirming the profile is still current, or by any payment; a lapsed profile drops to the Enriched tier until it is renewed.

Featured placements are paid advertisements

A practice can buy a Featured slot for a city and specialty. It appears above the results in its own labeled block, marked "Featured", on every device. It does not indicate that Guide.md considers one provider more qualified, safer or clinically appropriate than another, and it does not change the ordering of the results beneath it. Featured is separate from profile completeness, from ratings, and from verified status. Disclosures follow the FTC's guidance on native advertising.

Ratings are separate too

Where a profile shows a rating, it is compiled from named public review sources and labeled with its confidence and source count. Ratings never change ordering. How we rate.

Questions

Does a paid plan move my profile up?

No. Paid plans add fields, media, badges and listing pages, and raise how many condition and procedure pages you can confirm. They never move a profile above another verified profile.

Why is a verified profile listed ahead of an unverified one?

Because it is current and confirmed by the person it describes. That preference comes from verification, which is free to keep, not from payment.

How do I know what is an ad?

Featured placements are labeled "Featured" wherever they appear and sit in their own block above the results.

Claim the profile first. Decide what else you need afterward.

See what Guide.md already says about you. Search your name; claim only if you want to change it.