classify

Classify this one host. It came back from searches about this market: the anchor: {{anchor}} — {{sells}} its buyer: {{buyer}}

You are reading the host's own front page, fetched this run. Judge from the page: an audit of 39 competitor verdicts from this prompt's snippet era found 15 wrong, every one a comparison site called a competitor for the vocabulary it ranked. Say what the page supports and nothing more.

kind is what the host IS. Anything that sells into this market is a company; a host that merely writes about the market is a publisher; a host that enumerates vendors is a directory; a forum, subreddit or Q&A site is a community. Mark something noise only when it is genuinely unrelated to this market — noise is the one kind that leaves the map. If the page leaves you genuinely unable to tell what this host is, say unknown: a reader can finish an unknown, and cannot correct an invention.

Ask what the host IS before you ask what its page advertises. A host that writes about this market, indexes its vendors, or hosts its arguments is a publisher, a directory or a community — market vocabulary, and even a paid subscription, does not promote it to a seller. The line that matters is whether this host is trying to sell you the job, not how it packages what it sells: one tool, ten tools, a hosted service, an open-source project with a download button — all of them are companies here. Say what it actually sells in what, where a quote has to back you.

relation places the host on the map, stated from the anchor outward — WHERE it belongs, not whether it belongs at all. Nothing this run surfaced is optional to place; the only true exit is none, and it now costs as much evidence as any relation it replaces. Exactly one of:

Check in this order, first fit wins. adjacent sits last on purpose: its own test is the loosest here, true of almost anything nearby — checked first, it becomes the dumping ground competitor used to be. But moving it last handed the job back to competitor, which sits first: an audit of 27 competitor verdicts across two finished maps found 19 wrong, every one inflated, so competitor is now gated before it is reached.

THREE DISQUALIFIERS. Any one of them and this is NOT a competitor, however much vocabulary the page shares — carry on down the ladder:

1. the page treats the anchor as its INPUT, prerequisite, connector or host — "works on top of", "imports from", "routes to", " to ", a listed connector. A tool that CONSUMES the anchor's output is never its competitor, however much of the workflow it shares.
2. its buyer is not {{buyer}} — a consumer wallet beside a business platform is adjacent.
3. the overlap is with one named add-on of {{sells}}, not with the core of it. And the test that settles the rest: if a buyer who already has the anchor would plausibly buy this too, it is not a competitor.

• competitor — sells the same capability to the same buyer, instead-of fact on the page: a buyer would shortlist and pick one, not both. Shared vocabulary is not that fact, and neither is a shared workflow — re-read the three disqualifiers before you write this word.
• substitute — does the anchor's SAME JOB a different way (managed service, ready-made dataset, agency, DIY) — the anchor becomes unnecessary if chosen. The job is the test: a tool that does a DIFFERENT job (reads code instead of writing it, say) is never a substitute.
• shaper — the incumbent everyone positions against, or the infrastructure the market sits on.
• dependency — what the anchor is built on; it stops working without this.
• integration — STRUCTURALLY connects to the anchor: a partner page, a marketplace listing, a "works with X" section, a plugin built for it. Sitting nearby without a shown connection is not this.
• adjacent — only once substitute and integration are ruled out. Same buyer's world, different job, no structural link shown — a backup vendor, a hosting company. Same job differently is substitute; genuinely working together is integration; adjacent is neither of those.
• buyer — buys this category; the demand side, not a vendor at all.
• target — who the anchor is trying to sell to and has not yet; a buyer still an opening.
• covers — writes about this market: trade press, analyst blogs, newsletters, review sites.
• lists — indexes the vendors: directories, comparison pages, awesome-lists, marketplaces.
• discusses — where the buyer argues about this: subreddits, forums, Q&A sites, Discords.
• unknown — the page supports no relation; downgraded, not deleted — the host stays, wearing the refusal. "I couldn't tell what this sells" is unknown, never none.
• none — the only relation that removes the host from the map, so it costs the evidence any other relation would: no connection to this market's buyer, product or conversation whatsoever. Writing about, ranking or hosting the market's conversation belongs at covers, lists or discusses instead — never too thin to place there.