How the directory works

01

How listings are ordered

Every list runs in the same four bands. Within a band, agencies are shown in a fixed order that changes regularly, so no one sits on top for good. Ratings don't move an agency up or down, and neither does payment beyond the band it pays for.

1. 1SponsoredPaid · labelled Sponsored
2. 2FeaturedPaid · top of its city pages
3. 3VerifiedPaid · checked by us
4. 4FreeNot verified

02

How the Top 10 is ordered

City, visa and guide pages open with a Top 10. It keeps the same four bands — Sponsored, then Featured, Verified and Free — and within each band puts the agencies with the most public Google reviews first. The count comes from the agency's public Google business listing, as we last read it. The table shows each agency's Google rating beside it, labelled as Google's: we don't check those reviews or vouch for them.

So a Top 10 is not a ranking of quality, and no agency can buy a place in it beyond the band it pays for. An agency with no Google listing comes after those with one in its band. The full list under the Top 10 keeps the everyday order: the bands, then a fixed order that changes regularly.

03

What Verified means

Verified means a person at ApkaVisa has checked that the agency is real and reachable at the details it gives. It doesn't mean we recommend it, and it says nothing about visa outcomes.

A listing we have not checked yet says “Not yet verified”, whatever its tier. Its details come from the agency's application or its public business listing, and we have not checked them.

04

Where a listing's details come from

Every listing, free or paid, shows its full profile. Most of the agencies here came from their public Google Business listings, and their profiles show what that listing says: the address, phone, website, opening hours, where the office is on the map, a photo, the Google rating and the topics Google picks out of the reviews.

• ·“Last checked” is when we last read them. It is the date we took the details from the agency’s Google listing, not a Verified check.
• ·The rating is Google’s. It is labelled as Google’s, links to the reviews on Google, and is never mixed with reviews on ApkaVisa.
• ·The hours are one line for every day it opens. Google gives us one set of hours, so a shorter Saturday shows as a full day. Call before you travel.
• ·A mobile number is its WhatsApp. Where the listing gives a Pakistani mobile number, its WhatsApp button uses it. A landline gets no WhatsApp button.
• ·The photo stands in for a logo. It is the agency’s own photo on Google, until the agency sends us its logo.

Something out of date? An agency can claim its listing and correct it, and anyone can suggest an edit or report a listing from its profile.

05

ApkaVisa is one of the listings

ApkaVisa is a visa consultancy in Lahore, and it also runs this directory. Its listing follows the same ordering rules as everyone else's, it gets no extra place, and reviews of ApkaVisa go through the same checks.

This note appears on ApkaVisa's card and profile wherever they are shown.

06

How reviews work

Anyone who used an agency can review it on the agency's profile. Before a review appears:

• ✓Confirmed by email. We send the reviewer a link to confirm it. The email is never shown, and never given to the agency.
• ✓Checked by a person. We look for signs of fake or copied reviews: several from one network, a sudden burst for one agency, wording that matches another review, the same email twice.
• ✓Never bought. No agency can pay for reviews, and paid tiers get no help with ratings.
• ✓Never edited. We publish the words as written, or we don't publish them.
• ✓Never removed for being negative. A review that breaks our rules, like abuse, personal details or a fake, is turned down before it appears. Once published, it comes down only if it turns out to break them, for a legal reason, or at the reviewer's request, and we keep a record of why. An agency can ask us to look again, and we read the review against these rules, never against how good or bad it is.
• ✓One reply per agency. Featured and Sponsored agencies can reply once, publicly, under each review, from their dashboard. A person reads the reply before it appears, and it is posted as written.

Beside them, a profile shows the agency's Google rating and review count, and the topics Google picks out of its reviews — good and bad, as Google shows them. They are Google's, labelled as Google's and linked to the reviews themselves; we don't check them, and we never mix them into the reviews left on ApkaVisa. A rating never moves an agency up an ordinary list; the Top 10 orders by Google review count within each band, as above.

07

What we record

When you press WhatsApp, Call or Website on a listing, you go straight to the agency. We only count that the button was pressed, so agencies can see how often people reach them.

08

Sponsored listings are always labelled

A sponsored agency has paid for top place. Every sponsored card and slot carries a visible “Sponsored” label, on every page, including the homepage. Sponsorship doesn't change reviews, ratings or the Verified check.

09

The consultants on the homepage

The homepage shows 6 consultants. Sponsored listings come first, labelled Sponsored, in an order that turns each day when there are more of them than places. Any place they leave goes to a listing chosen by a fixed rule, and nobody pays for it:

• A Google rating of at least 4.5 out of 5, from at least 50 Google reviews.
• The highest first, with each rating weighed by how many reviews it rests on, so 4.9 from 60 reviews doesn't outrank 4.8 from 900.
• At least one visa listed, a WhatsApp number, a photo, and its opening hours or its own description, so you can act on it.
• No more than 2 from one city.
• Never ApkaVisa's own listing.

The rating is Google's, as each agency's Google listing shows it. ApkaVisa doesn't check it or vouch for it, and a high rating says nothing about your own visa outcome. The choice changes as the ratings do.