How we rank

Nocturne Finder Operated by Experts SEA (experts-sea.com)

Last updated: 25 September 2026

This page explains how we decide which places and events you see and in what order. We publish it under Article 5 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 (platform-to-business) and Article 7(4a) and 7(6) of Directive 2005/29/EC as amended by Directive (EU) 2019/2161.

1. Paid placement

• A venue or event that paid to be shown is marked Sponsored.
• In place search, sponsored places are shown above the other results. Among themselves they are ordered by an auction score: the bid multiplied by a quality score.
• In event lists, sponsored events appear in their own marked rail. Inside that rail a premium boost comes before a standard one.
• Paying never changes the order of results that are not marked Sponsored. Having a business account, claiming a venue or buying tickets through us does not move a venue or event up either.

2. Which places appear

A search for bars, pubs, clubs or restaurants returns places that:

• match the category you picked;
• are within the distance you chose. When too few places match, we widen the area step by step and show the places inside your distance first;
• are not known to be permanently closed;
• for bars and pubs, have hours that show them open tonight;
• have not been reported by several people as closed, or as not being a bar, pub or club.

3. Order of places

You choose the order: Recommended (the default), Distance or Closing hour. Distance and Closing hour sort by exactly that. For Recommended, these parameters apply in this order of importance, each one only deciding between places the ones above it could not separate:

1. Distance band. Places inside the distance you chose come before places found by widening the area.
2. Open tonight. Places open tonight come before places with unknown hours, which come before places closed tonight.
3. Type. In a club search, places known to be clubs come before bars shown as a fallback.
4. Quality score, made of:
   • the rating, weighted by how many people rated the place, so a few high ratings count less than many. Ratings currently come from third-party map services; we are replacing them with reviews written on Nocturne Finder;
   • likes from Nocturne Finder users, as a small capped bonus;
   • distance: closer places score a little higher;
   • closing soon: a place that closes within 45 minutes scores lower;
   • in bar and club searches, places that are mainly restaurants score lower than places mainly serving drinks;
   • reports from users that the place is closed or is not a bar, pub or club score lower.

For Recommended, an AI model (Google Gemini) may order places within each distance band. It reads the same information listed above: type, rating, number of ratings, price level, distance and tonight's hours. When the model is unavailable, the quality score decides.

What changes next

We are testing our own ranking to replace third-party ratings and the AI model. It will use reviews written on Nocturne Finder, likes, what people do on a venue's page (opening it, asking for directions, calling, visiting the website, sharing), scanned tickets and how complete the venue's information is. We will update this page before it goes live.

4. Order of events

• Events are listed soonest first.
• Lists of events near you group them by your city, then towns within 60 km, then within 250 km, then the rest, soonest first inside each group.

5. Reviews

• Only signed-in accounts at least 3 days old can write a review, one per person and venue. A venue's owner and staff cannot review it.
• A review is marked as a verified visit when the author had a ticket scanned at an event there, or had joined a past event there. Verified reviews count more in the score, and older reviews count less.
• Many reviews of one venue in a short time, or several from the same connection, are held for a person to check before they are published.
• We remove reviews that are fake, paid for, written with a conflict of interest, or break our Terms. The author is told why and can appeal once.
• Stars are shown from 5 reviews. We never mix reviews from other sites into ours.

6. For businesses

You can help your venue show up for the right searches by keeping its category, hours and details correct in the business panel. Questions or complaints about ranking: info@nocturnefinder.com.