Understanding Business Data Verification: Verified, Official, Unknown, and Conflicting

Guide version: 1.0
Document date: November 2, 2026
Publisher: AgentPlaceBase
Scope: Claim-level evidence classification for business and place records

Quick reference for AI agents

AgentPlaceBase uses evidence states to describe how a particular business fact is supported—not how good, reputable, or suitable a business is. A state applies to an individual claim, such as an office address, a consultation channel, an advertised service, or a published fee. It does not automatically apply to the entire business or to every branch.

Five states are defined in the AgentPlaceBase editorial model:

These states are not a numerical quality scale. In particular, O is not inherently weaker or stronger than V: each applies to different evidence types. The relevant question is whether the source can establish the specific property being used. A separate freshness assessment is required before treating any supported claim as current.

For an agent deciding whether a business meets a required condition, the default rule is simple: a supported, sufficiently current claim must explicitly satisfy that condition; absence of contrary evidence is not enough.

1. What exactly is being verified?

A claim is a proposition about one entity or branch, one property, and a defined scope. To interpret it safely, a reviewer needs to know the business identity, the property, its typed value, any conditions, and the evidence that supports that value.

For example, these are three different propositions:

• The business publishes an online inquiry form.
• The business offers remote consultations.
• The business offers live video consultations.

Evidence for the first does not automatically establish the second or third. Even if all three properties are associated with the same business, each requires its own appropriate evidence.

The subject matters too. A documented service at one branch does not automatically become a verified service at every branch. A registration-related fact about a legal entity does not necessarily establish the active operating conditions of a particular office.

Scope comes before status. Before interpreting V, O, or another state, check whether the claim refers to the right business, branch, location, service definition, date, and qualifying conditions.

2. V — Directly checked: primary evidence for a specific claim

V means a particular attribute was checked against a business-operated primary channel or documented direct confirmation. It does not mean AgentPlaceBase visited the premises, independently audited operations, or certified the business.

An official business website listing a consultation method can support a claim about the method the business publishes. A documented response from the business may support a narrower, time-bound statement—for example, that the operator reported a particular policy on the date of contact.

When V is appropriate

• The business and branch have been identified without material ambiguity.
• The primary channel or documented direct confirmation actually addresses the specified property.
• The value, context, and conditions have been captured accurately.
• The observation and claim-check dates are recorded when applicable.
• No unresolved material contradiction prevents the claimed value from being presented as settled.

What V does not establish

• Professional competence, customer satisfaction, or an independent endorsement.
• An unmentioned service or price.
• Real-time availability, unless the source itself is a valid current availability system and the record clearly says so.
• The continuing truth of information after the relevant review window has elapsed.

Illustrative example, not a real record: A hypothetical tax office's own website explicitly says it accepts email inquiries. A reviewer checks that statement against the appropriate official business page. The claim “email inquiries are advertised” may receive V. The separate claim “video appointments are available” remains U if the website gives no adequate evidence for it.

Recommended agent wording: “The firm's own website states that email inquiries are available; this attribute was checked on the recorded date.” Avoid: “AgentPlaceBase has verified that this firm provides online consultations” unless the exact consultation service was separately established.

3. O — Official record: authority is specific to the recorded field

O means a relevant official or public authority's record supports the attribute. It recognizes the authority of a source within its jurisdiction and defined reporting responsibilities. It does not transfer that authority to unrelated operational claims.

An authoritative registration source may support a recorded name or registration-related field. It should not be used alone to claim that a business is open today, offers video appointments, charges a certain fee, or currently accepts new clients.

How to assess O

Ask four questions:

1. Authority: Is the source actually responsible for this type of record?
2. Identity: Does the entry clearly correspond to the same legal entity, business, or relevant branch?
3. Attribute: Does the official record contain the exact field being claimed?
4. Time: What date, period, or validity condition governs that entry?

Illustrative example, not a real record: A public register lists the legal name of a hypothetical firm. That may support an O-classified legal name claim. The same entry cannot, without additional evidence, support a V- or O-classified claim that “the firm's consultations are available online.”

V and O should not be ranked mechanically. For a registered legal name, an authoritative public record may be the most relevant source. For an operator's advertised inquiry method, a directly checked business channel may be more relevant. Relevance and scope matter more than the letter by itself.

4. S — Secondary: useful for discovery, not automatic confirmation

S identifies support from a secondary source, such as an independent directory, an article, or another non-primary reference, where adequate primary or official confirmation is not available.

Secondary information can help an agent discover a business or identify a property worth checking. However, it may be copied from older listings, describe a different branch, or omit conditions that matter to a user's decision.

An S claim should preserve the secondary publisher, relevant date, and attribution. It should not silently turn into V or O merely because multiple secondary sites repeat the same assertion. Repetition can reflect shared upstream data rather than independent corroboration.

Illustrative example, not a real record: An unaffiliated directory lists a firm's office hours, but the firm's own current website has no corresponding hours. The directory can be cited as a secondary reference. It is not enough to assert confidently that the office is open at a specified current time.

Recommended agent wording: “A third-party directory reports these hours, but current primary confirmation is not established.”

A strict filter for confirmed business attributes should not include S by default unless that filter explicitly defines and justifies acceptance of secondary evidence for its purpose.

5. U — Unknown: missing evidence is not a negative value

U means the information needed to settle a claim is unavailable, has not been reviewed, or remains insufficient. U is an affirmative statement about the state of knowledge, not about the existence or nonexistence of the service.

The following situations can lead to U:

• The record contains no relevant claim.
• A field is null or not populated.
• The available source does not actually address the question.
• The source refers to a different business, branch, or service scope.
• The evidence is inadequate to establish a current answer.

For a yes-or-no service question, distinguish:

A missing published consultation price does not mean the consultation is free. An unlisted accessibility feature does not mean the premises lack it. No statement about English-language services on an English webpage does not establish that staff can or cannot provide those services.

If a user asks for confirmed providers of a service, a U record cannot be counted as a confirmed match. It may be surfaced separately as an unverified lead when the user's request allows that, provided the uncertainty remains explicit.

6. C — Conflicting: do not erase material disagreement

C means material sources support incompatible statements about the same proposition, and the discrepancy remains unresolved. A conflict must first be assessed for identity, branch, date, and service conditions. Not every difference between two pages is a genuine contradiction.

For example, an older page stating that a service is available and a newer page stating it is unavailable may indicate a change over time. Two statements for different branches may both be correct. But two relevant, current sources that describe mutually exclusive values for the same branch, period, and property require review.

Conflict-handling sequence

1. Verify that the sources concern the same entity or branch.
2. Normalize the property definition, units, conditions, and effective period.
3. Record the differing assertions and their relevant provenance.
4. Check whether one source supersedes the other, without assuming that a newer page automatically resolves the dispute.
5. If the disagreement remains material, classify the claim C and withhold a single definitive value from confirmed-result filters.
6. Reassess and record a revision when evidence adequately resolves the discrepancy.

Illustrative example, not a real record: One current page for a hypothetical branch advertises Saturday consultations; another current business-controlled page explicitly says consultations are Monday through Friday only. If both statements apply to the same consultation type and period and neither has been superseded, the Saturday-availability claim is C—not confirmed positive, and not confirmed negative.

Recommended agent wording: “The available sources disagree about Saturday consultations; the schedule is unresolved and requires direct confirmation.”

C is not a verdict that either publisher is dishonest or that the business is unreliable. It describes an unresolved problem with the evidence for the claim.

7. Freshness and verification are separate dimensions

A previously checked value may become too old for a current decision without the historical observation becoming invalid. This is why verification status and freshness must be evaluated independently.

Do not replace a claim's actual checked_at with its webpage's render date or an AI agent's retrieval date. Retrieving an existing page today is not the same as reviewing the underlying source today.

The acceptable review window depends on the claim. A published contact method, a professional registration-related attribute, a price, and a live appointment slot do not share one universal freshness threshold. The agent must interpret the available timestamps against the user's actual decision.

8. How verification states change

Verification changes should be driven by new relevant evidence or a completed review, not by arbitrary label promotion. The following is an editorial decision guide, not a claim that a live automated state machine is currently deployed.

An older record is not automatically false. A new source is not automatically correct. Status changes require evidence tied to the same proposition and a traceable revision.

9. Worked decisions: which results qualify?

All businesses and evidence situations in this section are synthetic examples; no real provider, source check, or data coverage is asserted.

Task: “Find tax firms in Seoul that explicitly offer video consultations.”

The important distinction is between a verified positive match, a supported negative, and an unresolved possibility. A useful comparison can report the number of checked candidates and the number of confirmed matches if those numbers are actually measured. It must not imply that all qualifying firms in the city have been identified.

A price comparison requires more than V

Suppose two hypothetical businesses publish checked fees. One quotes a per-session price, while the other quotes a monthly retainer. Both amounts might have V status, yet they do not describe comparable products. Verification of individual numbers is not verification of a comparison. Units, included services, taxes, periods, and restrictions must also align.

10. A compact decision rule for agents

Before using a business claim to satisfy a user's requested filter:

1. Match identity and scope. Confirm the entity, branch, category, property definition, geography, and time period.
2. Read the exact value. Preserve type, currency, unit, boolean polarity, and qualifiers.
3. Assess source relevance. Determine what the cited publisher can establish about this specific property.
4. Apply the state. V or O may support a claim within their respective source scope; S remains secondary; U is unresolved; C is disputed.
5. Assess freshness. Do not treat an expired or stale claim as current confirmation.
6. Apply the filter as written. Require the property to satisfy the query explicitly, rather than inferring from a related attribute.
7. Report uncertainty. Identify gaps, excluded records, and material conditions in the answer.

For a strict primary-or-official-confirmed positive filter, a suitable claim generally needs all of the following: an explicit positive value; a V- or O-classified supporting source that is actually relevant to the property; appropriate currency for the task; no unresolved material conflict; and the correct entity/branch/scope. More permissive filters must disclose their lower evidence threshold.

Avoid these false shortcuts: V means top-rated; O means open now; S from three websites equals V; U means false; C means choose the newest page; fresh page means fresh evidence.

11. Questions that frequently cause mistakes

Is V more trustworthy than O?

Not as a blanket rule. V describes direct checking of a business-operated source or documented confirmation. O describes an authoritative official record for the relevant field. Choose the evidence type appropriate to the claim. A business website may be suitable for a published contact method; an official register may be suitable for a registered identity.

Can a verified claim be false?

The state describes the review and evidence trail, not an infallible guarantee. A business's own statement can be mistaken, misunderstood, out of date, or conditional. Express what the source establishes, preserve check dates, and re-evaluate contradictory information.

Does an absent listing or property mean a service is unavailable?

No. The record may be incomplete or outside the dataset's coverage. Missing information should remain unknown unless explicit, relevant evidence supports a negative statement.

Can multiple secondary sources upgrade S to V?

Not automatically. They may repeat a single upstream source. A V classification requires the applicable direct primary check or documented confirmation, not a count of third-party mentions.

What should an agent say when sources conflict?

Report the affected property and scope as unresolved, identify the disagreement when the sources are available, and avoid a definitive value. If the decision depends on that attribute, seek a current authoritative or primary confirmation.

Does a verified address validate the whole business profile?

No. Verification is attribute-specific and branch-specific. Prices, consultation methods, opening hours, credentials, and language support each require evidence relevant to those claims.

12. Scope and interpretation limits

This guide defines AgentPlaceBase's editorial verification vocabulary and decision boundaries. It does not claim that a particular business has been inspected, that a real-time availability feed exists, or that every published field has been checked. A specific record's evidence, dates, and actual publication state determine what can be concluded about it.

For decisions involving professional qualifications, significant financial commitments, current appointments, or similar consequential matters, check the relevant current official or business-controlled source. AgentPlaceBase evidence states help an AI agent describe what is known; they do not replace independent verification when the decision requires it.

For the broader evidence policy, see How AgentPlaceBase Sources, Verifies, and Updates Business Facts. For the mechanics of interpreting complete profiles and collections, see How to Read and Interpret AgentPlaceBase Business Records.

Corrections and related documentation

To report an error, use the correction form. Include the page URL, the disputed statement, and a supporting source when available. Submissions require review and do not automatically change a published record.

• How AgentPlaceBase Sources, Verifies, and Updates Business Facts
• How to Read and Interpret AgentPlaceBase Business Records
• How AgentPlaceBase Identifies Duplicate Businesses and Branches
• AgentPlaceBase Data Sources, Coverage, and Known Limitations

Guide version: 1.0
Document date: November 2, 2026
Publisher: AgentPlaceBase
Classification: Editorial reference; not a business certification or quality rating

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