Directory Listing & Ranking Policy

Who appears in the directory

• Professional Members in good standing who have published a profile with at least one language pair and a display name.
• Applicants, denied applicants, and lapsed, suspended or revoked members never appear.
• Membership status is read live from the same source as ibcot.org/verify and is never cached for more than five minutes.
• Training completion is never shown as a badge. The Certified badge appears only for members who hold the IBCOT Certified Official Document Translator credential.
• Members can unlist their profile at any time.

How results are ordered

1. Tier 1: Certified members in good standing. Tier 2: Professional Members in good standing.
2. Within a tier, order rotates evenly: a deterministic shuffle seeded by the date plus the query, so the order is stable for a visitor during the day and changes daily.
3. Nothing else affects order. No payment, no partner relationship, no common-ownership relationship, no profile completeness score, no inquiry history.

What a listing means

• A listing shows that the member is an IBCOT member in good standing and, where the Certified badge appears, that the member holds the credential as of the time shown.
• A listing is not a referral, an endorsement of any translation, or a guarantee of acceptance by USCIS or any other agency.
• Languages are member-declared. IBCOT does not test general language fluency and does not perform translations or set prices.

Report a concern

A listing, badge or claim that does not match a verification result can be reported through the Fraud and Seal-Misuse Reporting policy. Fraud and Seal-Misuse Reporting →