Frequently Asked Questions

Highstreett is a personalised search engine for places and books. Describe what you want in plain English and, once you're signed in, it remembers your taste, your saved dietary needs, allergies and religious requirements, and what you've liked before. For places, it searches Highstreett's own listings and Google Places at the same time, then ranks what fits. Place recommendations work anywhere in the world. In the UK, Highstreett checks who owns businesses against Companies House records and marks verified independents. Known chains appear after other results, and some big national chains, about 120 brands, are left out entirely. Lincoln and its villages, and Hackney E8 in London, also have browsable directory pages. For books, you can import your Goodreads or StoryGraph library so recommendations know what you've read, and turn any list into a reading project that tracks how many you've read.

Yes, once you’re signed in. It learns from what you rate, review and like, reads your saved dietary needs, allergies, religious requirements and dealbreakers on every search, and remembers across chats which places and books it recommended and what you thought of them. Signed out, it remembers what it has shown you within one conversation. It only uses your own activity.

Highstreett is an AI-led platform. When you ask the agent for a recommendation, it reads the context in your profile and, for places, searches Highstreett’s own listings and Google Places at the same time, then ranks what fits. The underlying model we use will change over time. We’ll always pick whichever delivers the best recommendations for the context you’ve given it, not whichever is cheapest or biggest.

If you’d rather not use AI, you don’t have to. You can still use Highstreett as a directory to find and support local businesses.

We also use AI tools to help draft some of the written content on this site, such as blog posts and business descriptions, and a person reviews it before it’s published.

Verification is something we do business by business, and a verified badge marks the ones we have done. When we verify a business we check three things.

• Is it trading and registered? We use Companies House for this.
• Who owns it? We check the ownership structure through Companies House and the PSC register. A national or multinational chain, a franchise, or a private-equity-owned business doesn’t earn the verified-independent badge. Most aren’t hidden: on directory pages they’re listed and labelled for what they are, and in search they come after the other results.
• Is it locally owned? Independence is about ownership, not size. A local owner with a few different locations in a city still counts, because the money and the decisions stay local. That is the point: keeping the local economic multiplier turning.

A missing badge is neutral in both the directory and search. It can mean unchecked, unresolved or non-independent. The badge is the only positive ownership claim. Turn on Shop Local to hide the chains; places we haven’t checked yet stay. Ownership can also change after we check. If a business that was independent gets bought by a chain or private equity we do not delete it. We keep it visible with a “no longer independently owned” label so its history stays visible. If we have got something wrong, tell us and we will review. Our full methodology is on the Independent Business Index methodology page.

Search shows what is actually near you, chains included. The exception is some big national chains, about 120 brands, from the Costas, Greggs and Tescos to restaurant, fashion and hair chains, which are left out entirely, because a search that returned them would be answering a question nobody asked us. A background ownership check can also leave out a place it finds is a franchise. Every other known chain is shown, after the other results.

Everything that does turn up is shown with ownership information where available, and the ones we have confirmed independent carry a verified badge. If you want none of the chains at all, the Shop Local toggle hides the chains; places we haven’t checked yet stay. It is off by default, because hiding results is your choice to make and not ours.

We don’t pre-vet quality. That’s what reviews are for. Each visit to a restaurant or shop is going to be a bit different, and we think the aggregate of reviews from people who’ve actually been there is the most honest signal of what to expect.

What we do watch for is review bombing and faked reviews. If a review is flagged and confirmed false we remove it, and repeated violations result in account suspension. We cannot yet confirm that a reviewer visited the business, so treat reviews as accounts from other people rather than verified visits.

Not yet. We’re working on letting businesses take bookings directly through Highstreett, for restaurants, salons, and appointment-based businesses, but it’s not live. For now, Highstreett links you out to the business’s own booking page, website, or phone number.

Highstreett is free to use and free to be listed on, and doesn’t make any money today. Two things may change that: a small commission if you buy a book through one of our links, and a flat per-order fee if we run bookings or delivery for a business. We’ll say so clearly wherever either applies. Rankings aren’t for sale and never will be. We don’t take payment to call a business independent.

We don’t have a paid business membership. If you run a business and want to be listed, send us a request through the business signup page. Listings are free, and you can claim and update yours at no charge. If you’re independent, we verify your ownership against Companies House and give you the verified-independent badge.

Longer term, when we open up direct bookings and other revenue features, businesses will be able to opt into those, but the core directory listing will stay free.

Right now, Highstreett is available through our website at digitalhighstreett.com. Dedicated iOS and Android apps are coming over the next few months.

Search works anywhere in the world. Browsable directory pages are separate: Lincoln and its villages, and Hackney E8 in London, have them now. An area gets directory pages once we’ve listed enough businesses there to make them genuinely useful.

If you’d like Highstreett in your city, you can register interest on the British Cities page and we’ll let you know when it’s available.

Research for the Federation of Small Businesses found that each £1 a council spent with local small firms produced an extra 63p of benefit for the local economy, against 40p for large local firms. Source: Federation of Small Businesses with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, 2013.

A 2004 study of one Chicago neighbourhood found that about $68 of every $100 spent at ten independents went back into the local economy, against about $43 at ten competing chains. Source: Civic Economics, for the Andersonville Development Corporation, 2004.

We built Highstreett to make the independent businesses on a high street easier to find, so they’re competing on a fairer footing with the chains around them. More on our mission page.