How the guide works, what it costs (nothing), and how to claim, add, fix or remove a listing.
Yes. Listing is free, claiming is free, searching is free, and no business pays for position. Claimed listings appear first in search results, and that is the only ordering rule.
Every business from Coolangatta to Coomera and the hinterland: as of 24 Sep 2026, 13,007 businesses in 369 categories across 76 suburbs.
Every day the guide checks each business it lists. If a business has closed or its site is not reachable, the listing is removed that day. Trade licences are matched against the Queensland Building and Construction Commission register, and ABN status against the Australian Business Register.
Only from a click-to-call link on the business's own website, or from the owner. If a site publishes no number, the listing shows none. Nothing is copied from another directory.
Open your business's page and click This is my business, or go to https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/claim/. Confirm from an email address at your business and the page is yours: you set the description, opening hours, phone number and website, and changes go live within minutes.
At https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/add/, free and without an account. Give the business name, suburb, phone number and your email; add the website if you have one. A confirmation link comes to your email and the listing goes live when you click it. The same email carries your edit link.
If you have already claimed your listing, use your edit link or click Email me my edit link at https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/business/edit/. If it is not claimed, or it is a one-off correction, use https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/fix/. A change to the address is confirmed by a link we email to the business.
At https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/business/edit/, write your own description, set your hours, phone, website, suburb and street. If you already have your edit link, use it; otherwise click Email me my edit link on that page and we send a fresh one to the email address you claimed with. This edit link is only ever emailed to that verified claim email, and it is already in the welcome email you got when you claimed or added your listing.
At https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/remove/. We email a confirmation link to the business's own address; open it and press the button, and the listing is removed. To be listed again later, use the add form.
A small badge for your website footer that tells customers your listing is checked daily and links back to the guide. The code is at https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/badge/.
Every Monday one claimed business goes on the homepage of the guide for 7 days, built from its own listing: the description the owner provided, hours, phone and website, with a backlink to their site. It is automatic: a claimed listing with those four things completed joins the queue, longest waiting first, never two of the same trade back to back. The feature also goes to our local media contacts and stays online at https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/features/ for as long as the business is operational.
The businesses that went live on the guide in the last 7 days, grouped by suburb, at https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/new-this-week/, rebuilt daily. New ABN registrations from the public register are a separate page at https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/new/.
It is removed after three failed checks in a row, the same day. Recent closures, grouped by suburb, are at https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/closed-this-month/.
The 30 biggest suburbs and 30 biggest categories, with the share that show a phone, a website, prices and a claimed owner, at https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/numbers/.
https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/new-to-the-gold-coast/ lists the categories most people need first: removalists, storage, real estate and property managers, the trades, health, child care and a cafe.
https://goldcoastbusinessguide.com.au/emergency/ lists no plumbers and no locksmiths who say on their own website they take emergency or after hours calls, with the exact words each one uses. Ring first: hours change.
Coastworks AI, a Queensland based consultancy that builds websites, email marketing and AI automations for small businesses. It pays for the guide and runs the system behind it; nothing on a listing is influenced by that.