Data & methodology
Where every PestPin record comes from
PestPin is built on public records. Every company listing traces to a state regulator's pesticide or pest-control license roster, and every profile links its source. This page documents exactly which sources feed the directory, how often we process them, the rules we apply, and what we add beyond the raw rosters.
The rules we apply
- Official sources only. Records come from state regulator rosters and lookups, never from scraped review sites or self-submitted lists. A company cannot pay to be added, removed, or ranked.
- Consumer-service classification. State rosters mix exterminators with lawn, agricultural, and government applicators. We classify every record using the state's own license category codes and roster scope; records we cannot confirm as consumer pest-control work are excluded from the public directory rather than guessed at.
- Processing dates on every profile. Each profile shows when we processed its record. States marked "official snapshot" below are processed from a published file we acquired on the date shown, reprocessed on our recurring schedule; that is not a same-day regulator check, and we never describe it as one.
- Fail-safe refreshes.Sources are reprocessed twice daily where the regulator supports it. A failed or suspicious pull never removes a state's existing records; every run is logged with row counts and a content fingerprint so silent data loss cannot happen.
- What a match does not mean. A license-record match is not an endorsement, an insurance check, a service-area guarantee, or proof of current status. Regulator publication timing varies; the official lookup always has the current answer. Details on how we check records.
- Reviews cannot be bought. Only people whose request a company accepted receive a review invitation, and every submission is moderated before publication. There is no pay-to-rank and no purchased placement in results; optional paid placement, where offered, is clearly labeled.
The 28 state sources
"Live source" states are fetched from the regulator on our twice-daily schedule. "Official snapshot" states are processed from a published official file, acquired on the date shown.
What we add beyond the rosters
The rosters are public; the work is making them usable. PestPin unifies 28incompatible state formats into one search, decodes each state's category codes into plain English, links every record to its source, computes per-city coverage from the records themselves, and connects homeowners to a listed company through a request that goes to one provider at a time and is never resold. The aggregate dataset also powers our licensing report and cost report, including a machine-readable download.
Found an error in a record? Use the correction form and we will review it against the official source.