What a provider must show before it's listed

Before a provider can appear on your shortlist, Abroadocs's code opens up to six pages of the provider's own website, its legal notice and privacy page included, and checks that:

1. The website loads securely, over https.
2. The business's name appears on its own pages, read the way the site prints it: capitals, punctuation, accents and a legal-form ending such as "Ltd", "GmbH" or "S.L." don't matter, but the words of the name must appear together and in order. A very short name has to appear in full, legal form included.
3. It publishes an email address on its own pages. This is required: a phone number alone isn't enough, because you need somewhere to send your quote request. An address written to put off spam robots — "info [at] firm.de" — or hidden by a website's email protection is read too. When the address the search reported isn't on the provider's own pages, Abroadocs uses one those pages do publish on the provider's own domain — a domain that carries the business's own name, not just a word like "translations" — and the card says which page it read it from. An address that appears only on another website, or belongs to a directory or the company that built the site, doesn't count.
4. It says it does this work — the actual work. Its own pages describe the service you need, and the words Abroadocs quotes have to show that kind of work: a page about translating a criminal record is not evidence of obtaining one, and a translator is not a company-formation service. A provider whose page shows a different kind of work is left out for that service, and the reason is counted under "What ruled others out". Or an official register lists it for that service. For a translation, Abroadocs also looks for the provider's own words naming your source language. When its site only lists many languages, the provider stays on the list with "Language pair: not stated on its site" under what Abroadocs could not confirm, ranked after those whose site names it.
5. It's in the right country for the service. See Which country a provider has to be in.
6. Nothing official counts against it. A provider is left out if a register shows its registration withdrawn, suspended or expired, or if the company register lists the company number it quotes as dissolved. A business whose web or email address uses "gov" the way a government address does, without being on an official government domain (a private ms-gov site next to a ministry's ms.gov), is also left out, whatever its pages say. Where a company register publishes a page per company (the UK's Companies House first), Vlad reads that one page for the number the provider's own site quotes and says what it found — "Company 08683949 is active on Companies House (checked 1 Oct 2026)" — in the register's own words. It fills in no form and uses no account. A provider found through a professional association's directory is marked "Listed by …, corroboration, not official confirmation".
7. For sworn translation only: the translator states its appointment — on an official register, or in its own words on its own website, which Abroadocs labels as its claim. Where the country has no sworn translators (the UK, Ireland, Portugal or the US, for example), this check doesn't apply.

Vlad also reads who runs it and how it handles data — but this is not a check it must pass. Vlad opens the provider's own contact, legal, imprint, terms and privacy pages. It looks for who operates the business — a company name with its legal form, a registration number (a chamber of commerce, company, VAT or tax number), or a named responsible person, quoted as printed; a court's or ministry's official list that names the provider counts too — and for a privacy notice: its own page, or a privacy section inside the legal notice or terms. A provider whose pages show both carries the mark "Names its operator and privacy notice" (or "On an official list, with a privacy notice", when an official list named it rather than its own site). One that does not is shown on the same list like any other, with no warning on its card; it only comes after a provider that is equal on everything else and shows both. Many good sole translators and public offices do not print these on their sites. What Vlad found is under Company details in "What I checked" on each card. Where documents are processed is shown there in the provider's own words or as "not stated" — it is never guessed from a country; a provider outside the EU gets one plain line that documents you send it leave the EU.

Everything Vlad shows about a provider is quoted from a page Vlad opened itself. If the AI said something about a provider that Vlad couldn't find on the page, it is simply left out.