How This Directory Works

1. Adding a New Business

• 1

  Submit the Registration Form

  A business owner or community member fills out the "Register a Business" form. It requires public contact info, a description, and private owner emails used strictly for security alerts and validation.

• 2

  Email Verification

  Before the listing goes anywhere, the system sends an automated email to the provided Private Owner Email address. The submitter must click the secure link in their inbox to prove the email is real.

• 3

  Admin Review & Publishing

  If the email domain exactly matches the business's website domain, the directory instantly auto-publishes the listing! Otherwise, the verified submission is sent to the St. Joe Pride Moderation team for a quick manual review to ensure community standards are met before it goes live.

2. Community-Driven Edits

To ensure the directory stays accurate, anyone can suggest an edit to a business's public listing. Here's how we prevent spam while empowering owners.

• 1

  Submitter Verification Loop

  A community member suggests a correction. To prevent spam, they must provide their own email address and click a verification link sent to their inbox. Only then is the edit processed.

• 2

  Business Owner Approval

  The system securely emails the Business Owner with the suggested changes. The owner can click "Approve" to accept the changes, or "Reject" to instantly discard them.

• 3

  Final Moderation & Rollbacks

  To protect the directory's reputation, all owner-approved changes are sent to the St. Joe Pride Admin team for a final check. If an admin approves an edit that modifies sensitive contact info (like the business's private email or physical address), the system takes a secure snapshot and sends an "Undo Link" to the owner's old email address to prevent hijacking.

3. Annual Quality Control

• 1

  The 1-Year Checkup

  To prevent the directory from becoming a graveyard of closed businesses, every listing expires after 365 days.

• 2

  Automated Reminders

  When a listing is 30 days away from expiring, the system emails the business owner a "Reaffirmation Link". If they don't click it, they get reminders at 14 days and 3 days before expiration.

• 3

  One-Click Renewal

  If the owner clicks the link, their listing is instantly renewed for another year. If they ignore all reminders and the 365 days pass, the listing is automatically pulled from the site to keep our data fresh.

4. Spam Protection & Community Safety

• 1

  Bot & Abuse Shielding

  We use Cloudflare Turnstile bot verification on all public listing registrations, edit suggestions, and community reports to block malicious spam submissions without using intrusive CAPTCHAs.

• 2

  Double Opt-In Reporting

  To report a negative business interaction, a user must provide an email and solve a Turnstile verification. The system sends them a secure confirmation link. The report only enters the administrator moderation queue after the user clicks the link to verify their email, preventing reporting system abuse.

• 3

  Direct Administrator Ingestion

  Trusted, Zero Trust authenticated directory administrators can bypass public validation and CAPTCHA steps, adding vetted listings directly to the live D1 SQL database from their console.