Methodology

The ordering of standard directory results comes from a published formula. Agencies can also pay for featured placement and visibility, and those placements are clearly labelled.

What we verify

Every agency listed employs at least one agent currently registered with the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA). We check the public register on a regular schedule — see data sources for the current cadence — and the date of the last check is shown on every agency page.

How relevance is ranked

Browse and search results default to a score from 0 to 100 built from eight signals:

Rating (25%) — a Bayesian average of the agency's Google rating, weighted toward the site-wide mean when an agency has few reviews. This matters: without it, a single five-star review would outrank an agency with 200 reviews averaging 4.7, and this helps prevent a small sample from dominating the front page of every city.
Claimed profile (15%) — a verified agency claim earns weight because it gives the firm an accountable profile owner.
Client availability (10%) — agencies accepting new clients receive the full signal; limited availability receives half.
Featured placement (25%) — an active paid placement receives a clearly labelled visibility boost in the ranked results.
Review volume (10%) — a logarithmic score of Google review count, capped so that very high review counts stop adding weight.
Tenure (8%) — years since the agency's earliest currently-active agent registration, capped at 15 years.
Roster size (5%) — a logarithmic score of the number of currently active registered agents at the agency.
Contactability (3%) — whether the agency has a working website, phone number, and email address on file.

Scores are stored in the directory and periodically recalculated when source data changes. Ties break by featured status, active agent count, and then alphabetically. Paid placement affects visibility but does not change the underlying register facts or Google rating.

What registration is not

Registration confirms someone is legally allowed to charge a fee for Australian immigration assistance. It is not a quality rating, and it is not our endorsement. Use it as a baseline check, and use the Google rating and review count — sourced independently — as a second signal.