# How we rank — every agent is researched & quality-gated

> Source: Agents·Index — https://theagentsindex.com/methodology
> Index last updated: Oct 9, 2026

Agents·Index is a curated index, not a scraped one. Before any agent appears here it must pass an automated quality gate — the same checks are enforced in code, so a thin or unverified page is structurally impossible to publish.

## The quality gate

Every listing must clear four bars before it can be published:

1. **Structured research.** A minimum set of structured fields — what it is, what it does, key features, pricing and real use cases — must be present and complete. A stub can't pass.
2. **Sourced facts.** Claims are backed by cited sources, not marketing copy. Pricing and capabilities reflect what the agent actually does.
3. **On-topic fit-check.** An agent that isn't genuinely relevant to this directory is rejected, however complete its record — relevance is a gate, not a nice-to-have.
4. **Freshness.** Listings carry a last-verified date and are re-checked over time.

## Why we don't score agents

We do not give agents a rating — no stars, no 0-10, no grade. A rating is only worth reading if its input is independent of whoever publishes it, and any number computed from our own research would measure our work rather than the agent. What every page publishes instead is the evidence: the sources itemised and labelled by the claims they support, the date we last checked plus a changelog of what moved, an explicit "best for" and "not for", and real cons and limitations — which are required to publish.

## How listings are ordered, and what money can buy

Paid listing placements appear in a distinct advertising section, not mixed through organic results. Each carries the visible label "Advertisement". Payment buys exposure, not a recommendation or a better assessment.

1. **Within the advertising section:** Premium placements precede Featured placements. Publication date, newest first, then name break ties within each group.
2. **Organic browse results:** publication date, newest first, then name. Date makes newly published records easier to discover; the alphabetical tie-break makes equal-date results stable. Neither is a quality score.
3. **Your selected search order and filters:** these narrow and order matching results. A paid placement does not make a non-matching listing meet your requirements.

Curated collections retain their stated selection method. A research report's matching records use the exact datasheet criterion and answer states stated beside the finding; those records are alphabetical, not paid recommendations. Home-page selections may show a limited set rather than every listing; https://theagentsindex.com/search is the route to the full index.

No payment buys any of the following, at any price: whether an agent is listed at all (every listing passes the same automated quality gate, and money cannot skip, soften or hurry it); the verdict, the "best for" or the "not for"; any researched field — pricing, features, licence, integrations, the itemised sources, the re-verified date; an exclusion, which stays published with its reason; or anything at all about a competitor's row. The only row a payment moves is the payer's own, and it is labelled where it moves. See https://theagentsindex.com/pricing.

Display advertising is a separate purchase: units in four fixed slots — the home page, category pages, the search page and the best-of pages — plus a slot in the email digest. Those sit outside the list of agents altogether, carry the same "Advertisement" label, and move nothing in the order.

Every outbound link attached to a paid listing placement, display unit, affiliate destination or underwritten report carries both rel="sponsored" and nofollow. Independently chosen editorial sources remain ordinary citations: nobody can buy one or trade a backlink for one.

## Corrections & submissions

Anyone can submit an agent for review, but a submission is only ever a candidate — it enters the same research-and-gate pipeline before it can be published, and nothing a submitter writes becomes page copy unverified. Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we re-verify.