How does CargoLinked check listings?

Companies publish their own listings, and a listing is not reviewed before it goes live. What we can check, we check automatically and show on the listing as dated facts. The Verified badge goes further: a person at CargoLinked confirms eight things before it is granted.

The listing facts, and what each one means:

• On CargoLinked since (month): when the listing first went live in the directory.
• Managed by the company: someone from the company created or claimed the listing and manages it from their account.
• The owner confirmed an email at (domain): the person managing the listing proved they receive email at the company's own website domain.
• Website online, checked (date): on that date the website loaded over a secure connection and stayed on its own domain. It says nothing about what the website offers.

A fact appears only while the check behind it has passed and is current. A fact that is not shown is not a warning: many genuine companies have simply not completed every step.

The Verified badge needs all eight of these checks to pass:

1. The company is registered and active in an official company register, under a name that matches the listing.
2. The person applying can act for the company: a named officer, someone with a confirmed email on the company domain, or someone with a signed letter of authority.
3. Every licence the listing names is confirmed and in date, and a US ocean freight (FMC) licence is on the FMC's list of licensed ocean intermediaries.
4. Those licences cover the regulated services the listing offers: air freight, customs brokerage, and ocean freight for US companies.
5. The business is real: its website is online and shows a phone number and street address, the website domain is at least 6 months old, and we have confirmed the business address.
6. The website describes a freight or logistics business that matches the listing.
7. Someone at the business email address opened a one-time confirmation link we sent to it.
8. No trust and safety report about the listing is open.

The badge panel on a listing names each item we confirmed, with its date, for example the registered company name and the licence number.

What "Covers" means: the panel lists the services that a confirmed licence covers, for example "Covers: Ocean freight". It comes from the licences themselves, never from the services the listing describes. If the listing offers a regulated service that no confirmed licence covers, the panel names that service too.

Checks are dated and repeated:

• FMC licences are checked against the FMC list every day.
• Websites are checked about every 90 days.
• The Verified badge lasts 12 months and is renewed only when the checks are confirmed again. It can also be reviewed at any time, for example after a report.
• Badges granted before October 2026 are being re-checked against this standard, and their panel says so until that review is done.

The badge and the listing facts are not an endorsement or a guarantee. They record what was confirmed and when, and they do not cover a company's conduct, prices or service. Agree terms in writing, and confirm bank details by phone before you pay.

Facts are updated automatically and can lag behind a change by a few days, so a listing may show a fact that has just changed, or not yet show a new one.

To report a listing, open it, select Report, choose the reason that fits and tell us what you found. We review every report, and a report can lead to a badge being reviewed or withdrawn.