Some people want to know reliable (physical) gold stores in their area or city, however, they have problems going to websites that “filter” such stores. Faced with this need, gold store directories arise, which allow users to find out about the different physical gold stores that are in their area. In this article, we share some tips for choosing a trustworthy gold store directory.
Differentiate between a store and a directory
Many people make the mistake of confusing a gold store with a directory, in the case of a store, it is dedicated to the purchase/sale of gold and precious metals in various forms (ingots, jewelry, and coins), while in the case of a directory, it is dedicated to providing information on gold stores, using different evaluation criteria to determine which stores to include in its directory.
Verify the time of the domain and its security certificate
A very important piece of information is to know the age of the domain since this will allow us to have a more objective evaluation of the website or directory, for example, if the domain is old (more than 10 years) it will be more likely to be reliable, on the other hand, if the domain is new (less than 2 years old) then it will be less reliable.
Another thing to check is that the website or directory has a security certificate, which can be found by viewing the acronym “https” (green padlock symbol) located in the upper left part of the address bar or browser (which precedes the domain name). In this way, the website or directory assures us that our data is protected while we browse it.
Do not stay in the first result and look at the content
Not always the first search results (about stores or directories of gold stores) are the best or most reliable option, since the gold market is very competitive, it is common to see different ads and organic results (which appear in various searches), because of this, it is important to do a little more research and review additional organic pages in the search results.
Another effective way to evaluate a directory is to see what types of content they publish if they add value and if they are relevant to the field, a good way to evaluate this point is to look at the blog, especially if it has a publication rate.
Check if the directory also has a price list or quote
A directory that has a price list is a good sign since such a tool allows users to know the daily price of gold, which allows them to be better informed. Having a quote or a price list is an effective way to demonstrate transparency and reliability. In this case, it is important to differentiate between the price quote of a store (which only offers prices of the products offered by said store) from the price quote of a directory of gold shops, which offers a more complete price quote, since it allows knowing the price of the day for gold and other precious metals. This information is very useful since one of the main mistakes when buying gold is not knowing the daily price of gold.
Verify that the list of stores is diversified
The store directory must have a diversified offer since if the directory has few stores (for example 1, 2, or 5) we can conclude that it is a new directory or that it is simply not a real directory (which works as a kind of “front”), on the other hand, if we see that the directory has a reasonable number of stores (for example, more than 10), then we can conclude that it is more reliable and transparent since the directory is doing its job to group several gold shops and give the user more alternatives.
Specialize in a single country
If the directory specializes in a single country or region, it will be more reliable, since it can be considered as a directory of specialized gold shops, in this way we will have greater assurance that said directory is reliable and that it applies better evaluation criteria.
