Owner's Guide

CJ Catalogue is the online directory for Eastern Visayas — the place locals and visitors look when they want to find a business, a tourist spot, a job, an event or a deal in the region.

It is managed by The Calbayog Journal, which has covered Eastern Visayas since 2014, with RackApp IT Solutions building and supporting the site. So the audience reading it is already a local one.

What a listing gives you

A listing is a page of your own on the site — your name, what you do, where you are, when you're open, how to reach you, and your photos. It does three jobs:

• You become findable. People searching the directory, browsing a category, or looking at the map can reach you without knowing your name first.
• You get a link to share. Somewhere to point people from Facebook, from a poster, or from a message — a page that stays current because you control it.
• Customers can reach you. Inquiries come through a form on your page, land in your portal, and copy to your email.

Who sees it

Anyone. Listings are public pages — that's the point of a directory. They're written to be found by search engines too, so a well-filled page works for you outside the site as well as on it.

What it costs

Listing is free and stays free. Paid plans add more room on your page and stronger placement across the site — Plans & what's included covers the differences.

List your business

Listing is an application, not an instant sign-up — a person on our team reads it. That's deliberate: it's what keeps the directory free of dead listings and businesses that don't exist.

What we ask for

Have these ready and the form takes a few minutes:

• Your details — name, email and phone, so we can reach you.
• The business — its name, what it does, and the category it belongs in.
• Your town — required, because it's what puts you on the map and in "near me" results. The street address is optional, and you can fine-tune the pin later.
• Which plan you want — Free is fine to start with, and you can change it any time.

There's one small sum to answer at the end — that's the only thing standing between you and the Submit button.

After you send it

Two things happen straight away.

We email you. The message carries your reference number and what happens next, so you don't have to write anything down. If you didn't already have an account, it also carries a link to set your password.

You get an account. The application creates one for you, and your listing is attached to it — so you can sign in and start filling in photos, opening hours and contact details while the review is still going on. A more complete page is a page we can publish sooner.

Already had an account and applied while signed out? We attach the new listing to the account you already have, and your password is untouched.

Then:

1. We review your details within 3–5 business days to make sure everything checks out.
2. If you chose a paid plan, we contact you by email or phone to confirm your information and walk you through it.
3. We set your listing live so locals and visitors can find you.

If the email doesn't arrive

Check your spam folder first. If it isn't there, you can still get in: go to the sign-in page, choose Forgot password, and enter the email address you applied with — the account is already waiting. Failing that, tell us.

If your business is already on the site

Some listings were added from public records before their owners joined. If you find yours, message us with something showing the business is yours and we'll move it to your account. See also Questions we get a lot.

The most common question we get is "why can't I see my business on the site yet?" — usually the answer is one of three things.

How long review takes

We read every application within 3–5 business days. Paid plans take a little longer, because we speak to you first to confirm your details and go through what your plan includes.

Your email has to be verified

We need to know the address on your account really reaches you, so your listing stays hidden until it's verified. Applying sends you a confirmation email; clicking the link in it — the same one that lets you set your password — is what settles this.

No email? Check the spam folder first, then sign in and ask for another from your account. If it still doesn't arrive, tell us and we can verify you from our side.

Something's still missing

A listing with no logo, no photo and no description isn't ready to be shown to anyone — it makes the business look closed. Your Overview page lists whatever is still outstanding.

Once you're live

Your page appears in search, in its category, and on the map. From then on your edits are your own — press Save and the public page updates immediately, with no second review.

In your portal: Sign in, then Business

Your portal is the private side of your listing. Everything is in one sidebar, grouped by what you're trying to do rather than by where it lives on your page.

What each part does

• Overview — the summary screen. What's still missing before you go live, recent activity, and your plan.
• My Business — everything that appears on your public page, one page per area. See Basics onwards.
• Marketing — Inquiries, Reviews and Analytics. The number beside it counts inquiries you haven't handled.
• Hiring — Job posts and the Applications that come in for them.
• Events — anything you're running that belongs on the public events board.
• Grow My Business — your plan, billing, page templates, and the Marketplace.

The bar across the top

Your business name sits at the top of every page. If you run more than one, that name is also the switcher — click it to move between them. See More than one listing.

Beside it are a link to your public page, so you can check how an edit looks, and your account menu for sign-out and password changes.

In your portal: My Business → Basics

Your name, logo, categories and the short description customers see first. This is the page to get right before any other — it's what shows on your card in search results, long before anyone opens your page.

What's on this page

• Business name — exactly as people say it locally. Don't add your town or your category to it; the site adds those itself, and "Marju's Kitchen Calbayog Restaurant" reads as spam.
• Tagline — one short line under your name. Think of the phrase you'd shout across a market.
• Short description — a few sentences on what you do and who for. This is what search engines quote, so put the useful words in early.
• Logo — a square image. Text-heavy logos turn to mush at card size; a mark or your initials reads better.
• Categories — where you sit in the directory. How many you get depends on your plan.
• Brand colour — the accent your public page uses. Free on every plan.

Choosing categories

Pick the one a customer would look under, not the one that describes you most precisely. Someone hungry browses Restaurants; nobody browses Fusion Culinary Concepts.

If your plan allows more than one, use the extras for genuinely different sides of the business — a bakery that also caters, say. Stacking near-identical categories doesn't get you seen more.

Renaming later

You can change your name any time, and the page updates immediately. The web address of your page is based on the name you first registered — if you've rebranded and want the link to match, ask us and we'll change it.

In your portal: My Business → Profile details

Your longer story, what you offer, and the links that help people find you. Most of this page is available on the paid plans — the sections you can't use yet stay visible but locked, so you can see what's there. Every field below is marked with the plan it needs; Every field & the plan it needs is the same information as one table.

Our story Business Premium and up

A few paragraphs about the business — when it started, who runs it, what you're known for. This is the part people read when they're deciding between you and someone else, so write it as you'd say it out loud rather than as a company profile.

Business highlights Business Premium and up

A short row of stat tiles near the top of your page — a number and a label each. They are the fastest way to answer "should I trust this place?" before anyone reads a word of your story.

Use facts you can stand behind — years in business, seats, rooms, licensed staff, branches, deliveries a week. Keep the label short enough to read at a glance, and put the number in the value box rather than in the label ("12+" and "Years serving", not "12+ years" and "Serving").

Services or products Business Premium and up

You choose which one your business shows: services, products, or both. Each entry can carry a name, a short line, a price and a photo.

Prices are the single most requested thing on a listing. If yours vary, put a starting price or a range rather than leaving it blank — "from ₱350" gets more inquiries than silence.

The rest of the page

These sit under Good to know and Links on the same page. The first four are on every plan, Free included.

• Price range — the rough band you sit in, shown on your card.
• Payment methods — cash, GCash, cards, bank transfer.
• Good for — who the place suits: families, groups, solo travellers, barkada.
• Good-to-know — the practical details people ask about anyway: parking, wifi, air-conditioning, whether you take walk-ins.
• Facilities & amenities — a tick-list shown on your page. Every plan has these; how many you can tick goes up with the plan.
• Search keywords — words people search that aren't in your description. Local nicknames, alternate spellings, the barangay, the products you're known for. Every plan has these, with a bigger allowance higher up.
• Social media links Business Premium and up — your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or LinkedIn.

Your call-to-action button and deals live one page across, under Promotion; photos and video have their own pages.

In your portal: My Business → Location & contact

Where you are, how to get there, and how customers reach you. Two things on this page do more work than the rest combined: your map pin and your phone number.

Pinning your location

Pick your town, type your address, then drag the pin on the map to your actual door. The pin — not the address text — is what "Get directions" uses, so a pin dropped in the middle of town sends people to the wrong place.

Ways to reach you

• Phone — the number someone should actually ring. On a phone it becomes a tap-to-call button.
• Viber and WhatsApp — add these if you'd rather people message than call. In much of the region a Viber number gets answered faster than a landline.
• Email — for the enquiries that need a paper trail.
• Website — if you have one. Leave it empty rather than pointing it at your Facebook page; that belongs in the social links under Profile details.

The get-in-touch form

Every listing, on every plan, carries a form so people can message you without picking up the phone. Those messages arrive in Inquiries and copy to your email.

If you move

Update the address and drag the pin — that's all. Your page keeps its web address, its reviews and its history.

In your portal: My Business → Opening hours

The days and times you're open. Small page, big effect: filled in, your card carries a live Open now badge, and people searching at 8pm can tell at a glance who's still serving.

Setting your hours

1. Set the opening and closing time for each day you trade.
2. Mark the days you're closed as closed — leaving them blank isn't the same thing, and a blank day reads as "we don't know".
3. Press Save. The badge starts working immediately.

Open around the clock

If you never close — a 24-hour pharmacy or convenience store — tick Always open instead of typing 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM.

Temporarily closed

Renovating, or shut for the season? Tick Temporarily closed. Your page stays up with a clear notice on it, rather than sending customers to a locked door and collecting a bad review for it.

In your portal: My Business → Photos

Photos are the single biggest reason someone taps your listing instead of scrolling past. Your page has three separate photo slots and they do different jobs — filling only one is the most common mistake we see.

The three kinds of photo

• Logo — the small square mark on your card and at the top of your page. Square image, no fine print.
• Cover — the wide image at the top of your page, and the one that carries your card. On paid plans it becomes a slideshow.
• Gallery — the grid further down, opened as a lightbox. This is where the food, the rooms, the workshop and the finished work go.

How many you get

Your allowance comes with your plan, and the Photos page shows what you have left as you upload.

Uploading, reordering, removing

1. Open My Business → Photos from the sidebar.
2. Drag files onto the upload area, or tap it to pick from your phone. JPG, PNG or WEBP, up to 5 MB each.
3. Drag a photo to reorder. The first gallery photo is the one that shows on your listing card.
4. Press the ✕ on a photo to remove it. That frees the slot straight away.
5. Press Save. Your public page updates immediately.

Photo rules

• Use photos you took or own. Images lifted from other businesses or stock sites get removed.
• No prices, promos or phone numbers burned into the image — those belong in the fields, where they stay current and searchable.
• No photos of people who haven't agreed to appear.

Common problems

My upload fails or stalls

Almost always the file is over 5 MB. Most phones can send a smaller copy — or take a screenshot of the photo and upload that instead, which shrinks it.

The photo looks cropped on my page

Covers are wide, so tall portrait photos get trimmed top and bottom.

I'm out of slots

Remove one you no longer need, or raise the limit from Grow My Business → Plans.

In your portal: My Business → Videos

A video shows a room, a dish or a workshop in a way photos can't. You don't upload the file — you paste a link to a video you've already posted, and we embed it on your page.

Where videos can come from

• YouTube — a normal video link, or a Short.
• Facebook — a video post from your page. It has to be public, or nobody outside Facebook can play it.

Adding one

1. Open the video on YouTube or Facebook and copy its link from the address bar or the Share button.
2. In your portal go to My Business → Videos and press Add video.
3. Choose the provider, paste the link, and add a short caption saying what it shows.
4. Save. The video appears on your page as a player people can start without leaving the site.

If the video won't play

• It's private or unlisted. Only public videos can be embedded. Check the visibility setting where you posted it.
• Embedding is switched off. YouTube lets an uploader block embedding; turn it back on in YouTube Studio.
• It's a link to a page, not a video. A link to your Facebook page won't work — open the individual video post first, then copy that link.

What's worth filming

A slow walk through the space beats a slideshow. Thirty to sixty seconds is plenty, shot sideways so it fills the player, with enough light that faces are visible. Nobody expects a commercial — they want to see the real place before they travel to it.

In your portal: Grow My Business → Templates

A template is the design your public page wears — how the hero, your photos, your services and your contact details are arranged. Same information, different presentation: what suits a resort doesn't suit a hardware store.

What your plan includes

Free listings use the standard page. Premium and Featured include premium templates — Featured includes more of them, so you can change your mind as your business changes. The Templates gallery shows every design; you can browse it without signing in.

Choosing one

1. Go to Grow My Business → Templates.
2. Press Preview on any design to see it filled with a sample business, so you can judge the layout rather than imagine it.
3. Apply the one you want. Your page changes immediately, and no content is lost — it's rearranged, not rewritten.

Template settings

Some templates expose their own options — which section leads, how the hero behaves. When your active template has them, a Template settings page appears in the My Business group. If you don't see it, your current design has nothing extra to set.

In your portal: My Business → Promotion

Tools to promote your listing and help it stand out. Some of these need a paid plan — the sections lock themselves rather than disappearing, so you can see what's available before deciding.

Deals & promotions

A promotion is a dated offer that shows on your page and on the public deals board. Each one carries a title, a description, an optional coupon code and a photo, plus the dates it runs.

Write the offer plainly — "₱50 off any large pizza, Mondays to Thursdays" works; "amazing deals inside" doesn't. And set the end date honestly: an expired promotion still on your page is the fastest way to lose trust.

Your call-to-action button

The prominent button at the top of your page. You choose the words and where it goes — Book a table, Order on Messenger, Check rates. Point it at something that works on a phone and answers quickly.

Review invitation link & QR

A short link, plus a QR code you can print, that takes someone straight to the review form for your business. Put the code on a receipt, a table card or the counter.

Asking in person the moment someone says they enjoyed it works far better than asking later by message. See Reviews for what you can and can't do here.

Calbayog Journal feature

Featured listings on the yearly plan include a feature article in The Calbayog Journal and an ad slot on the Journal website. You supply the photos and the story you want told; the placement is chosen by our team. Once the article is published you can link it from this page so it appears on your listing.

Every field on your listing, in one place — what it is, where you fill it in, and what each plan does with it. Use this when something you filled in isn't showing on your page: if your plan's column has a dash against it, the field is saved but not published yet.

How to read the table

• ✓ — you can use this field, and it shows on your page.
• A number — how many you get. Fill in more than that and only the first few show.
• — — not on this plan. The field stays visible in your portal but locked, so you can see what it does.

Basics

In your portal: My Business → Basics

Location & contact

In your portal: My Business → Location & contact

Profile details

In your portal: My Business → Profile details

Photos & video

In your portal: My Business → Photos, and My Business → Videos

Opening hours

In your portal: My Business → Opening hours

Promotion

In your portal: My Business → Promotion

Page design

In your portal: My Business → Template

Things that aren't fields

Some of what a plan buys isn't something you type in — it changes how your listing behaves rather than what it holds. The CJ badge, a gold map pin, featured placement on the homepage, priority in nearby results and your Analytics are all in this group. They're set by your plan alone, so there's nothing to fill in. Plans & what's included lists them.

If you need a field you don't have

Move up a plan from Grow My Business → Plans and the locked sections open immediately — anything you'd already typed into them is still there. If your business doesn't fit a fixed tier, Business Custom is priced per conversation; talk to us and we'll shape it around what you actually need.

In your portal: Marketing → Inquiries

When someone fills in the get-in-touch form on your page, three things happen at once: the message lands here, the bell in the top bar lights up, and a copy goes to the email on your account — so you find out even on a day you never sign in.

Working through them

1. Open Marketing → Inquiries. Anything you haven't dealt with sits at the top.
2. Read the message and reply however suits — by email, or by ringing the number they left.
3. Press Mark handled. It drops off the list and the sidebar count goes down.

Marked something handled too early? Mark it unhandled again and it comes back.

If the emails aren't reaching you

• Check your spam folder, and mark our messages as "not spam" so the next one lands properly.
• Check the address is right. Copies go to the email on your account — update it under Account & sign-in if it's an old one.
• Compare the two. If a message is in this list but never reached your inbox, that's an email problem — tell us and we'll look.

If you're not getting any at all

An empty list usually means the page isn't being found or isn't convincing, rather than anything being broken:

• Check you're live. A listing still in review isn't visible to anyone — see Review & going live.
• Check your Analytics. Plenty of views but no inquiries points at thin photos or missing prices. No views at all is a findability problem — categories and search keywords.
• Check the alternatives. Your phone number and Viber are right there on your page, so many people will simply ring instead. A quiet inquiry list isn't always a quiet business.

Marketplace requests

Requests you make from Grow My Business travel down the same pipeline, but they're kept separate from customer inquiries so your list stays a list of customers.

In your portal: Marketing → Reviews

Reviews are written by customers with their own accounts. You can't write them, edit them, or take them down — that's what makes them worth reading. What you can do is reply, invite more of them, and report the ones that break the rules.

Replying

Open Marketing → Reviews, press Reply under a review and write your response. One reply per review — you can edit or delete your own reply afterwards, but you can't add a second.

Replying to a bad review

A calm, specific reply does more for you than the review does against you, because everyone else reading can see how you handle a problem. Thank them, answer the actual point, say what you've changed, and offer to sort it out directly. Don't argue the details in public, and never mention anything personal about the customer.

Asking for reviews

Paid plans include a review invitation link and QR code under Promotion. Print the code for the counter or a receipt, or send the link after a job.

Ask everyone, not only the happy ones, and never offer a discount in exchange for a good rating — reviews bought that way get removed, and the practice is obvious to readers.

Reporting a review

Report a review if it's abusive, names a private individual, is clearly about a different business, or is an obvious fake. Use the report control on the review and tell us what's wrong; we read every report.

Who can leave one

Anyone with a visitor account on CJ Catalogue. Business accounts can't post reviews — including of their own listing — so the ratings you see are from people using the directory as customers.

In your portal: Marketing → Analytics

What your page did over a chosen period, and how that compares with the period before. Analytics comes with the paid plans.

Choosing a period

Pick from the last 30 days, the last 90 days, this month, or a specific past month. Whatever you choose, the figures are shown against the same length of time immediately before — so a number always arrives with the context that tells you whether it's good.

What each number counts

• Profile views — how many times your page was opened.
• Gallery opens — how many people opened your photos full-size. High numbers mean your photos are doing the selling.
• CTA clicks — presses of your call-to-action button.
• Contact clicks — someone tapped your phone number or email.
• Directions clicks — someone asked for directions to you. The closest thing to a footstep through the door.
• Social link clicks — people leaving for your Facebook, Instagram or TikTok.
• Review link opens — how often your review invitation was followed.
• Promotion views and promotion clicks — how your current deal is performing.

Reading them together

The useful signal is the relationship between two numbers, not either on its own:

• Plenty of views, few clicks. People are finding you but not convinced. Usually thin photos, no prices, or a missing description — start with Photos.
• Few views, but most who look act. Your page works; not enough people reach it. Add search keywords, get your categories right, or look at a plan with stronger placement.
• Directions clicks climbing. Real visits are coming. Make sure your opening hours are honest, so nobody arrives at a closed door.

In your portal: Hiring → Job posts

Open roles at your business appear on the public jobs board and on your own page, so people already looking at you can see you're hiring.

Posting a role

1. Go to Hiring → Job posts and press Add a job.
2. Give it a plain title. "Service Crew" finds more people than "Guest Experience Associate".
3. Set the employment type — full-time, part-time and the rest — and where the work happens.
4. Describe the job: what the person does day to day, what you need from them, and what you offer.
5. Save it. A post is either open — live on the board — or closed. There's no draft, so write it in one go.

What happens next

People apply through the site, and their applications arrive under Applications — not in your inbox as loose attachments.

Closing a post

When the role is filled, set the post to closed. It stops taking applications and drops off the public board; everything already received stays in your portal.

What we don't allow

• Posts asking applicants for a fee, a deposit, or payment for training.
• Roles that aren't at your own business — this isn't a recruitment agency board.
• Requirements based on sex, age, religion or appearance where the job doesn't genuinely demand it.

In your portal: Hiring → Applications

Everyone who has applied to your job posts, in one list, with their details and CV attached to each one.

Moving people along

Each application carries a status you set as you work through it:

• Submitted — just arrived, nobody has looked yet.
• Reviewed — you've read it.
• Shortlisted — worth an interview.
• Hired — the role went to this person.
• Rejected — not this time.

Setting a status doesn't message the applicant. Contact people yourself using the details on their application — even a one-line "we've gone with someone else, thank you" is worth sending, and in a region this size it comes back to you.

Reading a CV

Open an application to see the applicant's details and download whatever they attached.

Handling applicants' details

What people send you is personal data, given for one purpose: this job. Use it for that and nothing else — don't add applicants to a mailing list, don't pass CVs to another business, and don't post anything from an application publicly.

In your portal: Events

Anything happening at a set time and place — an opening, a sale, a fiesta activity, a workshop, live music. Events appear on the public events board and on your own page.

Adding an event

1. Go to Events in the sidebar and press Add an event.
2. Give it a title, a description, the venue, and when it runs.
3. Add a cover image. Events with a photo get opened far more often than events without one.
4. Choose its status and save.

Draft, pending, published

• Draft — yours only. Nobody else sees it.
• Pending — submitted, waiting for our team to check it.
• Published — live on the events board.

Events are checked before they go public, because the board is shared with everyone in the region. Ordinary events clear quickly.

Once it's over

Once the date passes, an event moves off the main board into the board's Past tab on its own — you don't have to tidy up, and it stays there as a record of what you've run. If something is cancelled or moved, update or delete it, so nobody travels for an event that isn't happening.

What belongs here

Real, dated, public things people can attend. A permanent discount isn't an event — that's a promotion. Your normal opening hours aren't an event either.

In your portal: Grow My Business → Plans

Every listing starts free and stays free. Paid plans add room on your page, promotion tools, and placement in more parts of the site.

What each one adds

• Free — be findable. Your name, a category, contact details, opening hours, a few photos, and the get-in-touch form.
• Business Premium — a full page. Your story, services or products with prices, deals, highlights, social links, a custom CTA button, the review invitation link, a premium template, the CJ Badge, and analytics.
• Business Featured — everything in Premium, plus visibility: featured placement on the homepage and the businesses page, a gold map pin, priority in nearby results, more photos and videos, and more templates to choose from. On the yearly plan it also includes a feature article and an ad slot on The Calbayog Journal.
• Business Custom — for chains, resorts and organisations that need something built around them. We scope it with you.

The Pricing page has the full side-by-side comparison and current prices, and you can open a sample page for each plan to see the difference for yourself.

Changing plan

1. Open Grow My Business → Plans.
2. Switch between monthly, 6 months and 1 year at the top — the longer the term the lower the monthly rate, and the Journal promotion on Featured comes with the yearly plan.
3. Pick a plan and confirm. Our team contacts you to arrange payment and activate it.

The CJ Badge

The gold badge on paid listings tells visitors our team has verified the business is real and operated by its owner. It isn't a rating, and it isn't for sale on its own — it comes with the plan once we've checked you.

In your portal: Grow My Business → Billing

Your current plan, when it started, and when it next comes up for renewal.

How paying works

No payment is taken online. When you choose a paid plan, our team contacts you to confirm the details and arrange payment directly — so you always speak to a person before any money changes hands, and there's no card stored on the site.

Renewals

Your billing page shows the date your plan runs to. We get in touch before it comes around, so a renewal is never a surprise charge.

Receipts

Ask us and we'll send one — email catalogue@calbayogjournal.com with your business name and roughly when you paid. If you need receipts made out to a company name for your books, tell us and we'll issue them that way.

Cancelling

Message us and we'll move you back to Free. Your listing stays up — you don't lose the page, the reviews or the history. Anything above the Free limits is hidden until you upgrade again.

Refunds

In short:

• Charged twice for the same listing — the extra charge is refunded in full.
• A fault on our side meant the listing never went live — refunded in full.
• Cancelled within 48 hours, before the listing was published — refunded in full.
• Cancelled within 7 days of going live — you get the unused portion back, calculated from the day you asked.
• Cancelled more than 7 days after going live — no refund for the current billing period.

To ask for one, email us from the address on your account with the business name, when you paid and how much, and why you're asking. Approved refunds go back the way you paid, usually within 5–10 business days depending on your bank.

The full Refund Policy is the authority here — this is a summary of it.

In your portal: Grow My Business

Beyond your plan, the Grow section is the CJ Marketplace — things you can add to your business that aren't part of a subscription. Everything here works by request: you tell us what you're interested in, and we come back to you with the detail and the cost.

What's on offer

• Advertise My Business — put your business in front of more people across CJ Catalogue and The Calbayog Journal.
• Website & Software Services — a website, an app, branding or custom software, built by RackApp IT Solutions, the technology partner that builds and supports this site.
• Business Apps — RackApp software for running your operations. Coming to the Marketplace.
• Add-ons — extend your listing on its own: extra photos, videos, categories, keywords and storage, without moving up a whole plan.

How a request works

1. Open the section you're interested in from Grow My Business.
2. Press the request button on the item. Your business details go with it, so there's no form to fill in.
3. We get in touch to talk it through, and confirm the cost before anything starts.

Add-ons or a bigger plan?

If you need one specific thing — a few more gallery slots, say — an add-on is the cheaper answer. If you find yourself wanting three or four extras, compare the total against the next plan up, which usually covers them together and adds placement on top.

Where this sits

CJ Catalogue is the discovery side: being found. The Marketplace is the growth side: advertising, software and services for the business behind the listing. Same team, same account — you don't need a second login for any of it.

Your account is you — the person. Your listing is the business. One account can hold several listings, and signing out of one signs you out of all of them.

Where your account came from

You don't create one separately. Applying to list your business creates it, and the confirmation email carries a link to set your password. Sign in from then on with the email address you applied with.

If that address already had an account, we attached the new listing to it instead of making a second one — so use the password you already have.

Verifying your email

Your listing can't be published until we know the address on your account really reaches you — it's where renewals and password resets go.

Usually this settles itself: the link in your application email is proof the address works, so setting your password also verifies you. If you signed up some other way, we send a separate confirmation link instead.

If nothing arrives, check spam first, then ask for another from your account. Still nothing? Tell us — our team can verify you from our side, and there's no difference between the two ways of doing it.

Passwords

Forgotten it? Use Forgot password on the sign-in page and we'll email you a reset link. To change a password you still know, use your account settings.

Changing your email address

You can update it in your account settings. Use an address you'll still have in two years — customer inquiries copy to it, and it's how we reach you at renewal.

Two kinds of account

A visitor account browses the directory, saves places, applies for jobs and writes reviews. A business account manages listings. Business accounts can't post reviews — including of their own listing — which is what keeps the ratings on the site meaningful.

Closing your account

Email us from the address on your account. We'll take the listing down and, if you ask, delete the personal data we hold about you. Your rights over that data are set out in our Privacy Policy.

You can run several businesses from one account. Each gets its own listing, its own plan, its own inquiries and its own analytics — you just move between them.

Switching between them

Your business name sits at the top of every portal page. When you have more than one, that name becomes a switcher: click it and pick the business you want to work on. Everything below — the sidebar, the inquiries, the photos — changes to that business.

Adding another business

Open the switcher and use List your business at the bottom of it, or go to List your business while signed in — we already know who you are, so there's less to fill in. It goes through the same review as the first one.

Branches, or separate listings?

List them separately when each has its own address, phone and opening hours — a customer searching for the nearest branch needs the right pin and the right number. Keep it as one listing when there's a single place of business and the rest are just delivery areas.

Destinations and towns

Some accounts also manage a tourist destination or a whole province — an LGU or tourism office, say. Those appear in the same switcher below your business listings, and open a portal built around guides, tourist spots and events instead of a single business page.

Short version: your listing has to be true, it has to be yours, and it has to be something you'd be comfortable showing a customer face to face. The full rules are in our Terms of Service; this is what they mean day to day.

Keep it accurate

• Prices, opening hours and contact details that are current. Out-of-date information generates complaints, and the complaints land on you.
• No services you don't actually offer — including in your search keywords.
• No claims you can't back up: "government accredited", "award-winning", "the only one in the region". If it's true, say which award and who from.

Keep it yours

• Photos you took or own. Images lifted from other businesses, from stock sites, or from Google get removed.
• Your own business only. You can't list someone else's business, and you can't use another business's name or logo in yours.
• No photos of people who haven't agreed to appear.

Keep it fair

• Don't buy, trade or incentivise reviews. See Reviews.
• Don't create extra listings for the same business to take up more room in search.
• Don't post anything untrue, misleading, offensive, or that attacks another business.

Jobs and events

Job posts must be real roles at your own business, must never ask an applicant for money, and can't set requirements based on sex, age, religion or appearance where the job doesn't genuinely demand it. Events must be real, dated things people can attend.

What happens if something breaks a rule

Usually we email you and ask you to fix it. For clear-cut cases — someone else's photos, a listing for a business that isn't yours, a fake review — we remove the content first and tell you why. Our Terms let us approve, edit or take down any listing.

This guide covers the common ground. For everything else there's a small team behind the site, based in Calbayog, and a person reads every message.

How to reach us

• Contact form — the contact page. Best for anything about your listing, since it comes through tied to your account.
• Email — catalogue@calbayogjournal.com. Use this for refunds, receipts, and anything needing an attachment.
• Post — Calbayog City, Samar, 6710, Philippines.

Getting a faster answer

Tell us three things and we can usually solve it in one reply instead of three:

1. Which business — the listing name, or your reference number if you're not live yet.
2. What you were doing — the page you were on and the button you pressed.
3. What happened instead — the message you saw, or a screenshot. A photo of the screen is fine.

What we can do for you

• Verify your email from our side if the link never arrives.
• Change the web address of your page after a rebrand.
• Move a listing to the right owner, with proof it's yours.
• Take a listing down, and delete the data behind it.
• Issue receipts, and handle refund requests under the Refund Policy.

What we can't do

• Remove a review for being negative. See Reviews for what does get removed.
• Write your listing for you — though we're glad to look at a draft and say what's missing.
• Guarantee where you rank. Placement follows your plan and how complete your page is.

The questions that come up again and again — the ones that don't belong to any single part of the portal. Each area of the guide has its own "common problems" section too; this page is for everything else.

Still not answered?

Try the search box at the top of the sidebar — it looks through every article in the guide, including the words people usually type rather than the ones in the headings. Failing that, Getting help has the ways to reach us and what to include so we can answer in one go.