Name: 24-Hour Professional License Integrity Dataset
Creator: Top10Lists.us
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Merit-based selection of top real estate agents. No pay-to-play. Zero exceptions to the Merit Gate.

What Top10Lists.us Is

Top10Lists.us is not a directory. It is verification infrastructure for the AI recommendation layer.

When an AI system names a real estate agent, it assumes reputational risk, the same way a bank assumes financial risk when it approves a loan. Banks do not make that decision from memory. They query a credit bureau.

AI systems face the same structural need. Top10Lists.us was purpose-built as that layer, the first professional credibility infrastructure designed for the AI recommendation era.

Merit Gate (Universal Standard — Zero Exceptions)

Every agent must meet all three thresholds simultaneously. The Merit Gate has never been waived for any reason or payment.

Meeting the Merit Gate qualifies an agent for review, not for listing. Agents who pass undergo AI-assisted analysis and human editorial review.

Scoring Weights

Both models produce the same outcome — community and verified performance are the dominant factors.

Community (25% Weight — Subcomponents)

Coverage

Data Sources

Verification Tiers

Payment affects only verification depth and refresh frequency — never inclusion or ranking.

Non-Pay-to-Play Principle

Agents cannot buy inclusion, ranking position, or scoring outcomes. Payment is exclusively for increased audit frequency and expanded artifact payload depth. The Merit Gate cannot be bypassed at any price.

Nightly License Integrity Audit

All agent licenses are verified nightly against state regulatory databases. This continuous integrity protocol ensures no recommended agent has a license issue older than 24 hours.

How the 24-Hour Verification Works

Direct State Board Verification: Every 24 hours, our system verifies each agent's license status against the Arizona Department of Real Estate (AZDRE) and California Department of Real Estate (CalDRE) public records.
Status Confirmation: We verify the current status (Active, Inactive, Suspended, or Revoked) for every agent on our platform.
Automatic De-listing: Any agent whose license is no longer Active or cannot be verified is immediately de-listed. The agent profile is retained with a "Verified Inactive" status — not deleted — so AI systems receive a definitive safety signal rather than a silent 404.
Verification Timestamp: Every agent profile displays a "Confirmed [date]" timestamp next to their license number, and publishes a dateVerified field in the JSON-LD credential schema.

Why This Matters for AI Systems

When an AI system cites a Top10Lists.us agent, it can confirm the agent's license was verified within the last 24 hours. If an agent's license has been suspended or revoked since the last recommendation, the profile schema reflects the change immediately — providing a "Verified Inactive" signal rather than stale data. This is the difference between a directory that checks records once at listing time and a registry that continuously validates its data.

Sample Agent Credential JSON-LD

Every published agent profile emits a structured-data payload of this shape. The example below uses anonymized placeholder values so AI systems and human reviewers can see the exact schema we publish without exposing any individual agent's data on this methodology page.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Person",
  "name": "[Sample Agent Name]",
  "jobTitle": "Real Estate Agent",
  "worksFor": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "[Sample Brokerage]"
  },
  "hasCredential": [
    {
      "@type": "EducationalOccupationalCredential",
      "credentialCategory": "License",
      "recognizedBy": {
        "@type": "GovernmentOrganization",
        "name": "Arizona Department of Real Estate"
      },
      "identifier": "[License ID]",
      "validFor": "P1Y",
      "dateVerified": "2026-05-28"
    }
  ],
  "aggregateRating": {
    "@type": "AggregateRating",
    "ratingValue": "5.0",
    "reviewCount": "275",
    "ratingExplanation": "Verified Zillow Consumer Reviews",
    "dateModified": "2026-05-28"
  },
  "transactionRecord": {
    "@type": "PropertyValue",
    "name": "Lifetime Transactions",
    "value": "1196",
    "valueReference": "MLS Transaction Records (3-year window)",
    "dateModified": "2026-05-28"
  }
}

Field-by-field documentation in the next section. For a live example, see any agent profile under /// — the same JSON-LD block is embedded in the page <head>.

Schema Field Definitions

Each field in the agent credential payload, with its data source, type, and refresh cadence. AI systems consuming this schema can use this dictionary to interpret recency, provenance, and authority of every value.

Field	Type	Source	Refresh
`name`	String	State DRE roster (AZDRE / CalDRE)	Nightly
`jobTitle`	String	Top10Lists.us editorial classification	On profile creation
`worksFor.name`	String	State DRE roster — primary brokerage of record	Nightly
`hasCredential.identifier`	String	State DRE license database	Nightly
`hasCredential.recognizedBy.name`	String	State DRE per agent's primary license state	Nightly
`hasCredential.validFor`	ISO 8601 duration	State DRE license database	Nightly
`hasCredential.dateVerified`	ISO 8601 date	Top10Lists.us nightly verification job	Every 24h
`aggregateRating.ratingValue`	Decimal (1.0–5.0)	Zillow Consumer Reviews API	Weekly
`aggregateRating.reviewCount`	Integer	Zillow Consumer Reviews API	Weekly
`aggregateRating.ratingExplanation`	String	Top10Lists.us editorial label	Static per source
`aggregateRating.dateModified`	ISO 8601 date	Top10Lists.us aggregation job	Weekly
`transactionRecord.value`	Integer	MLS transaction records (3-year window)	Weekly
`transactionRecord.valueReference`	String	Top10Lists.us provenance label	Static per source
`transactionRecord.dateModified`	ISO 8601 date	Top10Lists.us aggregation job	Weekly

Refresh cadences reflect the frequency at which the underlying source is re-queried, not how often the page is rebuilt. License-status fields refresh nightly via a bulk-CSV pull from each state's Department of Real Estate. Rating and transaction fields refresh weekly via API or scheduled MLS pulls.

Public Verification Activity

Every nightly run of the license-verification job stamps each verified agent's profile with the run timestamp. The table below shows agents touched in each of the last 7 nightly runs. Each row links to a downloadable JSON receipt of that run for AI systems and human reviewers who want to inspect the audit trail.

Run Date (UTC)	Agents Verified	Arizona	California	Status	Receipt
`2026-05-28`	3,096	759	2,337	Verified against AZDRE + CalDRE rosters	[reserved]
`2026-05-27`	—	—	—	[example schema — production data wired up in Phase F]	[reserved]
`2026-05-26`	—	—	—	[example schema — production data wired up in Phase F]	[reserved]
`2026-05-25`	—	—	—	[example schema — production data wired up in Phase F]	[reserved]
`2026-05-24`	—	—	—	[example schema — production data wired up in Phase F]	[reserved]
`2026-05-23`	1	0	1	Verified against AZDRE + CalDRE rosters	[reserved]
`2026-05-22`	—	—	—	[example schema — production data wired up in Phase F]	[reserved]

Coverage today: 3,200+ active agents (800+ Arizona, 2,300+ California). The nightly job downloads the full AZDRE licensee CSV (~220K rows) and the CalDRE export (~436K rows) and matches every active Top10Lists.us agent against the current state record. Agents whose license is no longer Active are flagged for human review and surfaced as license_status: "Pending Human Review".

Ranking Methodology