Inside the gate: how The Wall verified 2,286 listings and removed 696

Before launch, every candidate listing passed a US-headquarters gate and multi-method website liveness checks; 668 non-US companies and 28 dead sites were removed and barred from automated re-entry.

The Wall's launch index is defined as much by what was removed as by what was published. The verification pipeline applies three gates to every candidate listing, and 696 candidates failed them before launch.

The three gates

1. US headquarters. The index is US-only by policy. Headquarters country is checked from provider-declared profile data and, where ambiguous, verified by hand. 668 companies headquartered outside the United States were removed in the pre-launch sweep.

2. Live website. Every domain is machine-verified before publication using multiple independent HTTP methods, with a retry pass for transient failures, so that bot-blocking is not mistaken for death. 28 domains that failed every method were removed. Liveness is re-verified in periodic sweeps after launch.

3. No re-entry for removed domains. Removed domains go onto a blocklist enforced at the database layer — an automated scrape or a public submission cannot silently reintroduce a domain that was removed for cause. Restoration requires deliberate editorial action.

What verification does not claim

Verification establishes that a company is US-based and operating a live website — it is not an endorsement, a quality ranking, or a background check, and the index never presents it as one. Engagement figures on profiles are provider-declared data from public sources, attributed in plain language on each page. Errors get fixed: corrections are honored within two business days under the editorial & corrections policy, and any company may request removal at any time.