BetterSaaS

Trust

Rules, moderation and anti-gaming

A public reputation system only works if the rules are public too. These are the ones that govern reviews, problems, auctions and everything we do about manipulation.

How scoring works
The strategic rule

Never sell BetterRank. Sell tools, intelligence, distribution and ad inventory around BetterRank.

Every rule below follows from that one. If a policy would let money change an organic position, it does not ship.

On this page

Review rulesProblem conductBetterBid auction rulesAnti-gaming measuresAffiliate and commercial disclosureAppeals

Problem lifecycle states

The seven states, and what each one means in public.

StateMeaningWho can set it
OpenReported and not yet acknowledgedSet automatically on report
AcknowledgedCompany has respondedThe claimed product owner
InvestigatingCompany is working on itThe claimed product owner
Fix plannedResolution committed or scheduledThe claimed product owner
ResolvedCompany says it is fixedThe claimed product owner
Confirmed resolvedAffected user confirms the fixOnly an affected user
Not reproducibleCompany provides a reason, shown publiclyThe claimed product owner

Review rules

  1. 01Reviews must come from someone with genuine experience of the product; verification raises the weight your review carries.
  2. 02Verified signals — work email, billing confirmation, product usage — count materially more than anonymous activity.
  3. 03Invitation campaigns must ask for honest feedback. Campaigns that solicit only positive reviews are rejected and can suspend review tooling.
  4. 04Incentivised reviews must be disclosed. Undisclosed incentives are treated as manipulation.
  5. 05Companies may reply to any review. Companies may not delete legitimate criticism.
  6. 06Contribution reputation affects weighting: reviewers whose contributions are consistently found helpful influence scores more.
  7. 07Removed reviews also have their historical effect on the score removed, not just their visibility.

Problem conduct

  1. 01A problem is a structured report, not an open complaint thread. Title, category, severity, environment and description are required.
  2. 02Duplicate detection runs on submission; confirmed duplicates are merged into the original with affected counts combined.
  3. 03Companies can move a problem to Not reproducible or Rejected, but must give a public reason.
  4. 04Only an affected user can move a problem to Confirmed resolved. A company cannot confirm its own fix.
  5. 05Personal attacks, doxxing and off-topic content are removed. The underlying technical report is preserved wherever possible.
  6. 06Repeat abusive reporting suspends the ability to file problems; vendors have an appeal route for reports they believe are retaliatory.

BetterBid auction rules

  1. 01Only claimed and verified products can bid.
  2. 02A product may only bid on categories it is genuinely relevant to; irrelevant bids are refunded and the placement re-auctioned.
  3. 03Creative must match the verified product, and every claim in it must be supported by the product page.
  4. 04No malware, deceptive claims or prohibited products.
  5. 05Sponsored placement adds zero BetterScore points and is always visually labelled as sponsored.
  6. 06A paid winner is never described as '#1' anything — that language is reserved for organic BetterRank.
  7. 07Continuous wins are capped at 24 hours, or the auction resets daily, so no bidder holds a placement permanently.
  8. 08Auction history, winning prices and click statistics stay public on the activity page.
  9. 09Bad-actor or review-manipulation status suspends bidding until resolved.

Anti-gaming measures

  1. 01Review-burst detection: unusual volume from a single referrer or time window is held for review before it affects the score.
  2. 02Duplicate-identity detection across device fingerprints, email patterns and IP ranges.
  3. 03Vendor-authored review detection, including submissions from company IP ranges.
  4. 04Suspicious referral campaign detection on invite links.
  5. 05Category spam detection when a product applies to jobs with no supporting fit votes.
  6. 06Manual moderation and every ranking intervention leave an internal audit trail with actor and rationale.

Affiliate and commercial disclosure

  1. 01Where BetterSaaS earns a referral fee on an outbound click, that relationship is disclosed on the page carrying the link.
  2. 02Affiliate economics never influence ranking, comparison outcomes or which product wins a scenario.
  3. 03Newsletter sponsorship is labelled in the newsletter itself.
  4. 04Editorial coverage carries no ranking effect and cannot be purchased.

Appeals

  1. 01Companies can appeal a removed review, a moderation decision or a bidding suspension through the owner dashboard.
  2. 02Users can appeal a removed review or a suspended account.
  3. 03Appeals are reviewed by someone other than the moderator who made the original decision.
  4. 04Outcomes are recorded in the audit log, and material reversals are reflected in the score on the next recalculation.

Guardrails we hold ourselves to

Paid placements erode trust

Separate sponsored UI, published methodology, zero score contribution.

Review brigading

Verification, confidence weighting and fraud detection.

Founder harassment

Structured reports, moderation, evidence requirements and appeals.

Auction monopoly

Time caps and scheduled resets on every placement.

Cold-start rankings

Confidence labels and explicitly provisional ranks.

Category spam

Eligibility review plus user fit signals.