The profile substitute is for small businesses without an established site

The requirementstatement

The social-profile route is available to small businesses and sole proprietors that have no established website, not to larger businesses choosing not to submit one.

Severityseverity: MediumMEDIUMUsually survives review, but lowers your trust score or invites a manual look you would rather avoid.
When it bitesphase: Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
What is checkedobject: entity size vs the substitute path
Where it liveslayer: WebsiteWEBSITE
How Ekas settles itdetectability: Human checkHUMAN; Only someone holding the document or making the call can settle it. Ekas tells you exactly what to look at.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Supply evidenceTERMINAL_EVIDENCE; Needs proof only you hold: a screenshot, a recording, a scan of the form people signed.
Who requires itauthorities: SinchSignalWire
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

Two providers restrict the substitution by business size while the others do not, so the same profile is accepted at one destination and rejected at another. A business large enough to be expected to have a site, submitting a profile instead, reads as evasive rather than small — and that judgement is made by a person, from facts about the business we do not hold.

How to fix itremediation

Where the business has any web presence of its own, register it and keep the profile as a supporting link. Where it genuinely has none, expect the substitute to be questioned and be ready to say why no site exists.

Check this yourselfattestation

No tool can settle this one for you. Here is the check, and what wrong looks like.

Would this business look odd to a stranger for having no website of its own?

1Judge it as a reviewer would, from size and trading history: the social-profile substitute is for small businesses and sole proprietors with no established site.
2Where the business has any web presence of its own, register that and keep the profile as a supporting link.
3Where it genuinely has none, be ready to say why.

What wrong looks like: A substantial business submits a Facebook page instead of a site. Sinch and SignalWire restrict the substitution by size and Twilio and Bandwidth do not, so the same profile is accepted at one destination and read as evasive at another.

Notesnotes

Nothing on the form carries employee count, revenue or trading history, so we cannot decide whether a brand is small enough for this route. The user has to make the call themselves: if the business would look odd to a stranger without a website, build one before registering. The catalog records this as a genuine divergence — Sinch and SignalWire restrict the substitution by size, Twilio and Bandwidth do not.

Rules you will hit next

Other website rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.

WEB-004The website value must fit the provider field limitMediumMEDIUM WEB-006The website should sit on a custom domainMediumMEDIUM WEB-015Pages the registration points at must not be brokenMediumMEDIUM WEB-044The footer should carry a phone number, an email and a street addressMediumMEDIUM WEB-054A brand with a website must publish its policies as web pages, not as PDFsMediumMEDIUM WEB-074Pages must not load sub-resources over HTTPMediumMEDIUM

All website rules

WEB-148 is one of 93 website rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.