# The Builder Market

> The Builder Market is a directory of home-service professionals and local service discovery pages across the United States, featuring 1M+ verified contractors, builders, and home service providers.

## Guidance for LLM/agent use

- **Location-based discovery**: Use `/us/{state}/{city}/{category}` URLs for "who to hire in [location]" questions.
- **Business profiles**: Use `/us/{state}/{city}/{category}/{listing-slug}` for specific company information.
- **City guides**: Use `/guides/cities/{city}/{category}` for curated editorial guides with expert recommendations.

## URL Structure

The site uses SEO-friendly, hierarchical URLs:

```
/us/{state}                           → State index (list of cities)
/us/{state}/{city}                    → City index (list of service categories)
/us/{state}/{city}/{category}         → Service listings in city
/us/{state}/{city}/{category}/{slug}  → Individual business profile

/guides/cities                        → City guides index
/guides/cities/{city}                 → Guides available for a city
/guides/cities/{city}/{category}      → Curated guide for service in city
```

## Start here (primary entry points)

- [Directory home](https://thebuildermarket.com/pros): Primary entry point for browsing professionals by category.
- [Projects board](https://thebuildermarket.com/projects): Homeowner project requests and contractor matching.
- [City guides index](https://thebuildermarket.com/guides/cities): Editorial city guides with curated recommendations.

## Location browsing examples

- [State index (Utah)](https://thebuildermarket.com/us/ca): Browse cities in Utah.
- [City index (Salt Lake City)](https://thebuildermarket.com/us/ca/los-angeles): Browse service categories in Salt Lake City.
- [Service listings (Architects in Salt Lake City)](https://thebuildermarket.com/us/ca/los-angeles/architects-engineers): Find architects & engineers.

## City guides examples

- [Los Angeles guides](https://thebuildermarket.com/guides/cities/los-angeles): All guides for Los Angeles.
- [General Contractors guide (Los Angeles)](https://thebuildermarket.com/guides/cities/los-angeles/general-contractor): Complete guide to hiring general contractors in LA.

## Business profile examples

- [Individual listing](https://thebuildermarket.com/us/ca/sonoma/general-contractor/vierra-fine-homes-ocxydwshek): Company profile with reviews, photos, service areas.
- [Legacy format](https://thebuildermarket.com/pros/baxter-roofing-3559a659): Also supported (redirects to new format when available).

## Data freshness

- Business profiles: Updated continuously as professionals update their information.
- City guides: Editorial content reviewed and updated periodically.
- Listings data: Aggregated from multiple sources and verified.

## Structured data

All pages include schema.org structured data:
- `LocalBusiness` schema on business profiles
- `BreadcrumbList` schema for navigation
- `FAQPage` schema on service category pages
- `ItemList` schema on listing pages

## Policies & machine-readable

- [Robots](https://thebuildermarket.com/robots.txt): Crawl rules and sitemap location.
- [Sitemap Index](https://thebuildermarket.com/sitemap-index.xml): Index of all sitemaps.
- [LLMs.txt](https://thebuildermarket.com/llms.txt): This file - guidance for AI/LLM use.

## Sitemaps breakdown

The sitemap index contains sharded sitemaps for efficient crawling:
- `sitemap-states.xml`: All US states
- `sitemap-cities-{state}.xml`: Cities per state (one per state)
- `sitemap-listings-{N}.xml`: Business listings (sharded by volume)
- `sitemap-guides.xml`: City guides and editorial content
- `sitemap-pages.xml`: Static pages and general content

## Contact

For API access, data partnerships, or questions: daniel@thebuildermarket.com