Neutrality, and where our conflicts are.

Verification is separate from payment.

A provider becomes discoverable in Vector Network when an administrator opens a verification case, reads the submitted evidence, accepts or rejects each item, and stamps an expiry. Nothing else sets that flag. No plan, no fee and no relationship with us can reach it, and verification lapses on its date whether or not anything has been paid.

When a verified provider widens its own scope — a new city, a larger seat band — the platform reopens a case for the added scope rather than trusting the edit. The badge on a card tells you the state, and the profile tells you the date it expires.

Organic rank is never bought.

Organic results in Vector Network are ordered by a fixed list of signals, in this order. Each signal strictly outranks everything below it, and ties break on the listing's slug, so the same search always returns the same page.

1. 1Verification. A current verification, granted by an administrator who read the evidence, outranks everything else.
2. 2Category. The provider does the kind of work the search asked for.
3. 3City. The provider works in the city the search asked for.
4. 4Seat band. The provider has worked at the scale the search asked for.
5. 5Sector. The provider has worked in the sector the search asked for.
6. 6Accepted evidence. Cases, certifications, references and registry records an administrator accepted. A submitted claim counts for nothing until it is read.
7. 7Completeness. How much of the listing the provider has actually filled in.
8. 8Responsiveness. The lowest-weight signal, and only ever a tiebreaker: the provider's recorded median reply time to briefs. A provider we have measured nothing for scores zero here rather than a guess.

Money is not on that list, and neither is any relationship with us. The ranking code has no field for payment, and an automated check fails the build if one appears. Every card carries the rationale for its own position, written from the same signals — if you cannot see why a provider is where it is, that is a bug and we want to hear about it.

Sponsored placement is a separate lane, and it is labelled.

A provider may pay to appear in a Sponsored lane. On Vector Network and on a buyer’s Vector Exchange matches, that lane sits above the organic results, under its own heading, and every listing inside it carries the Sponsored label with the sponsor’s stated reason and the date its term ends. A provider may also pay for a labelled sponsor panel on the Vector Network, GCC Pulse and Explore GCC India pages, outside every ranked list.

Paying buys that visibility and nothing else. It adds nothing to the score, and the organic list is the same with or without it: a sponsor also appears there, unlabelled, at the position its evidence earns. It never affects whether or how a listing is verified, and only a currently verified listing can appear in a lane or a panel. Professionals cannot be sponsored. Paid placement and sponsorship has the detail, and what changed on 21 Oct 2026.

The ACV relationship is disclosed structurally.

GCC Vector is a venture of ACV Solutions. Where a listed provider has a relationship with ACV — a founding partnership, or an ACV affiliate — the platform records it on the listing and prints it as a disclosure on the card and on the profile. The disclosure is produced by the same code that produces the ranking, so a listing cannot carry the relationship without carrying the sentence that admits it.

The relationship contributes nothing to the score. It is shown so that you can discount our recommendation if you choose to.

Which neutrality model governs listing is not yet decided.

Until that decision lands, every ACV-related listing carries its disclosure and is ranked by the same signals as every other listing. That is the floor, not the answer.

No peer comparisons until permissioned data exists.

We publish no percentiles, no “compared with similar centres” claims and no counts of builds we have supposedly benchmarked. Vector Index is a methodology page and an empty shell until organisations have contributed data and consented to its use. Read the Vector Index methodology.

What this page used to say, and what replaced it.

Sponsorship went live on 21 Oct 2026 (ADR-007). These sentences were on this page before that date and are no longer true as written; each is quoted exactly.

• Before: “Rank is never bought.”

  Now: Organic rank is never bought. A sponsor can buy a labelled place in the Sponsored lane above the organic results; its organic position is unchanged.

• Before: “A provider may pay to appear in a sponsored box. That box sits below the organic results, under its own heading, and every listing inside it carries the Sponsored label.”

  Now: The Sponsored lane sits above the organic results, under its own heading, and every listing in it carries the Sponsored label, the sponsor's stated reason and the date its term ends. A sponsor also stays in the organic list at its merit position.

How to challenge a listing or a rank.

Every GCC profile takes a correction from anyone, with or without an account, and nothing changes on the public page until an administrator accepts it. For a provider listing, a disputed verification or a rank you believe is wrong, write to support@gccvector.in with the listing and what you think is wrong. We will tell you what we find, including when we find that we were right.

Our handling of your own data — consent, purpose, withdrawal and retention — is on the privacy page.