UK Pet-Service Directory Data Quality Report — August 2026

This is a first-party report about our own data. It sets out how many UK pet-service listings PetCompare Hub actually shows to the public, how recently those records were checked, how often we have corroborated a listing's identity against the business's own website, and — just as importantly — how much of our data is still missing or unusable. We publish it because a directory that only reports its strengths is not telling you enough to judge it. The counts below are a snapshot of our production catalogue on 18 August 2026, calculated using the same filter that decides what appears in public UK search. They will change as the catalogue changes.

Key findings

• 4,909 public, searchable UK listings on 18 August 2026.
• 1,527 of those records were checked by our automated maintenance within the previous 90 days.
• 221 had their identity and contact details source-matched against the business's own website within the previous 90 days.
• Known gaps: 454 have no usable coordinates, 1,558 have no website recorded, and 3,257 have no structured services recorded.

By PetCompare Editorial Team · Published 2026-08-18 · Updated 2026-08-18 · 9 min read · Editorially prepared by PetCompare — not veterinary advice

Why we publish this report

PetCompare Hub compiles pet-service listings from publicly available information. That approach can inherit gaps or stale fields when public information changes. The honest position is that a directory record is a record of what we currently hold — not a survey of the business.

So rather than describe our data in adjectives, we are publishing the counts. Each number below has a definition attached so readers can see exactly what it does and does not measure. You can read the underlying rules on our trust and transparency page and our listing policy.

Snapshot: our public UK catalogue as at 18 August 2026

All figures below describe the same population: UK listings that are publicly searchable on PetCompare Hub on 18 August 2026.

The 454 listings with no usable coordinates include the 64 pairs we deliberately withheld, described below. Every count is a point-in-time figure for 18 August 2026.

Coverage by service category, 18 August 2026

The same 4,909 public UK listings, grouped by the primary service category recorded on each listing. These are counts of our records, not counts of businesses trading in the UK.

Two caveats matter here. First, the category taxonomy is not perfectly normalised: smaller legacy and synonym labels exist outside the categories listed above, so these counts should be read as the main groupings rather than as a closed classification. Second, 3,257 public listings carry no structured services at all, so a listing's primary category is often the only service signal we hold for it. A low count in a category — dog day care and training are the clearest examples — tells you about our coverage of that category, not about how many such businesses exist.

Coverage by city label, 18 August 2026

The twenty most common city labels across the same 4,909 public UK listings. A city label is the city value stored on the provider record; it is not a boundary, a travel-to-work area or a catchment.

These are label counts, and labels are imperfect. A business on the edge of a large city is often labelled with its own town rather than the city, which spreads records across many small labels instead of concentrating them. A further 229 public listings have no city recorded at all, and 454 have no usable coordinates, so neither the labels nor the map can be treated as a complete geographic picture. Nothing in this table should be read as market size, demand, provider density per head of population, or a ranking of how well served a city is.

What "public and searchable" means — and what it excludes

The 4,909 figure is not a count of every row in our database. A UK listing is only counted here — and only shown in public search — when all of the following hold: the record's country is GB, its data status is active, and its listing quality is live_ready or fully_enriched.

That last condition is a quality gate. Records that are still in internal review, or that are only partially populated, exist in the catalogue without being shown publicly. This is deliberate: we would rather show fewer listings than show records we do not think are ready. It also means our internal row count is higher than our public one, and quoting the internal number would overstate what a user can actually find.

You can see the public population for yourself by searching UK listings.

What "checked within 90 days" means

1,527 of the 4,909 public UK listings carry a check timestamp within the previous 90 days. That means the catalogue record was processed by one of our maintenance routines in that window — not that a person sat down and inspected the business.

This distinction matters because "checked" can otherwise sound like human review. A recent check timestamp tells you the record has been through recent automated maintenance. It does not tell you a human confirmed the opening hours, the price list or the services on offer.

The remaining 3,382 public listings do not have a check timestamp inside that 90-day window. Their information may still be correct — it simply has not been through our maintenance routine recently.

What "identity source-matched" means, and what it does not

221 public UK listings were identity source-matched within the previous 90 days. That is a deliberately narrow claim: it means we corroborated the listing's identity and contact details against the business's own official website — a distinctive business-name match plus one or more corroborating signals available on the official site, such as phone number, postcode, address or city.

It does not mean we verified the services offered, the prices charged, the ratings shown, any licence, insurance or registration, or the quality of the service. None of those are covered by an identity source match, and we do not present them as if they were.

The process fails closed. If we cannot confidently attribute an official website to a listing, or the details on it contradict what we hold, the listing does not get a positive source match. A missing source match therefore means "we have not corroborated this", not "this business is questionable".

How we handle contradictory coordinates

Geographic data inherited from public sources is sometimes wrong, and a wrong coordinate is worse than no coordinate: it puts a business on the wrong part of the map and into the wrong distance results.

Our rule is conservative. Where a GB record's stored city resolves to a UK city centre we hold, and the record's coordinates contradict that city by more than 45 miles, we stop trusting the coordinate. It is not used for radius filtering, map pins or distance display, and the listing is shown with its location flagged as needing checking instead.

In 64 high-confidence repair cases we went further and set the contradictory coordinates to NULL rather than guessing a replacement. The original values were preserved in our audit logs, so the change is reversible and reviewable. We would rather withhold a location than invent one.

This is an internal data-quality rule about our record. It is not a statement about the business: a flagged coordinate says our stored location and stored city disagree, nothing more.

What the missing-data counts mean

Three of the counts above describe fields we do not hold: 340 public listings without a phone number, 1,558 without a website, and 3,257 without structured services. A further 229 have no city recorded and 454 have no usable coordinates.

These are statements about our data, not about the businesses. A listing without a website in our catalogue means we do not currently hold a website for that record as structured public data; it does not establish whether the business has one. The same applies to phone numbers and service lists. No inference about a provider should be drawn from any of these counts.

The structured-services figure is the largest gap and the one we consider most limiting, because it is what makes filtering by service reliable. Where we do not hold structured services, our comparison surfaces treat features as listing-stated only rather than confirmed.

Directory record, claimed listing, identity source match, PetCompare Verified

These four things are routinely conflated in directories. They are separate on PetCompare Hub:

• Directory record — compiled from publicly available information. Unclaimed records may be incomplete or out of date, and inclusion is not endorsement.
• Claimed listing — an owner or authorised representative has confirmed control and can correct eligible details. Claiming is not verification.
• Identity source-matched — we corroborated identity and contact details against the business's own official website. Nothing more.
• PetCompare Verified — shown only after an approved ownership claim and evidence reviewed by our team. It cannot be bought, and no plan, promotion or payment grants it.

If paid placement is introduced, it will be separated from organic ranking and will not affect any figure in this report.

Limitations, and how to get something corrected

The limitations of this report are worth stating plainly:

• Every count is a snapshot for 18 August 2026 and will drift as the catalogue is maintained.
• Source websites change, and a corroboration made within the last 90 days can be out of date tomorrow.
• We do not claim every field on every listing is current. We claim only what each definition above states.
• The counts describe our records, not the businesses those records refer to.

If something we publish about a business is wrong, tell us and we will look at it. Owners can claim a listing to correct eligible details, and anyone can report an issue through our contact page. Correction and opt-out requests are handled under our listing policy.

Methodology

Figures were calculated directly from PetCompare Hub's production provider catalogue on 18 August 2026, using the same predicate that governs public UK search: country GB, data status active, and listing quality live_ready or fully_enriched. That population totalled 4,909 listings.

Freshness measures — records checked, and records identity source-matched — were counted over the 90-day window ending 18 August 2026, using the record's stored check and source-verification timestamps. Missing-field counts are simple presence tests against the same population on the same date. The contradictory-coordinate count is the number of high-confidence repair cases in which coordinates were set to NULL and the original values retained in the audit log.

No sampling, weighting or estimation was applied: these are complete counts of the stated population on the stated date. We intend to repeat this report so the figures can be compared over time.

FAQs

How many UK pet-service listings does PetCompare Hub actually show?

As at 18 August 2026, 4,909 UK listings were public and searchable. A listing is counted here only when its country is GB, its data status is active, and its listing quality is live_ready or fully_enriched. Records still in internal review or only partially populated exist in the catalogue without being shown publicly, so our internal row count is higher than our public one.

Does "checked within 90 days" mean a human reviewed the listing?

No. It means the catalogue record has a check timestamp inside the previous 90 days — that it went through one of our automated maintenance routines. It does not mean a person inspected the business, its opening hours, its prices or its services. 1,527 of 4,909 public UK listings carried such a timestamp on 18 August 2026.

What does "identity source-matched" actually verify?

Only identity and contact details, corroborated against the business's own official website — a distinctive business-name match plus one or more corroborating signals available on the official site, such as phone number, postcode, address or city. It does not verify services, prices, ratings, licences, insurance, registration or quality of service. The check fails closed: an uncertain or mismatched official website does not produce a positive source match.

Why do some listings show no location on the map?

Because we would rather withhold a location than guess one. Where a GB record's stored city resolves to a UK city centre we hold and the coordinates contradict that city by more than 45 miles, the coordinate is not used for radius filtering, map pins or distance. In 64 high-confidence cases the coordinates were set to NULL, with the original values kept in our audit logs. This is a rule about our data, not a judgement about the business.

A listing has no website or phone number — does that business not have one?

No inference of that kind should be drawn. Counts such as 1,558 listings without a website, 340 without a phone number and 3,257 without structured services describe fields PetCompare Hub does not currently hold as structured public data. Absence of a field means we do not hold it; it does not establish whether the business has it.

Can a business pay to be PetCompare Verified?

No. PetCompare Verified is shown only after an approved ownership claim and evidence reviewed by our team. No plan, promotion or payment grants it, and it is separate from both claiming a listing and an identity source match.

How do I get something on my listing corrected?

Owners can claim a listing to correct eligible details, and anyone can report an issue through our contact page. Correction and opt-out requests are handled under our listing policy. Counts in this report are a snapshot for 18 August 2026 and change as the catalogue is maintained.

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