Asked in the US about logistics and freight companies, the engines read the FMCSA register and SAFER and the FMC licence list for forwarders and NVOCCs first. The engines verify what the US government publishes: the USDOT and MC number with the authority type and safety rating for carriers and brokers, the FMC OTI licence for ocean forwarders and NVOCCs, the CBP licence for customs brokers, the broker's BMC-84 surety bond, and CTPAT membership for anyone claiming a secure supply chain. Publish what your buyers compare: pick and pack per order, storage per pallet or bin per month, receiving, and the surcharge list for 3PL; per-mile and accessorials for carriers; the customs entry fee for brokers.
What US buyers ask the engines about logistics and freight companies
The metro is in the sentence, and so is the brand, the licence or the size when the trade has one. Six of the questions the report puts to the four engines for a logistics company in the United States:
| Kind | The question, as asked |
|---|---|
| Head term | best 3PL for a Shopify brand shipping 5,000 orders a month |
| Product | which freight brokers move refrigerated truckload from California to the Midwest |
| Niche | customs broker in Long Beach for apparel imports from Vietnam |
| Comparison | Flexport versus a traditional freight forwarder for ocean imports |
| Comparison | 3PL versus in-house fulfilment at 300 orders a day |
| Niche | FTL carrier with a dedicated lane from Laredo into Texas |
The US sources the engines read for logistics and freight companies
Asked without a country the engines assume the United States, so these are the pages they read by default. For logistics and freight companies:
| Source | What it decides |
|---|---|
| The FMCSA register and SAFER | the USDOT and MC numbers, the authority, the safety rating and the insurance on file; American shippers check them and so do the engines |
| The FMC licence list for forwarders and NVOCCs | Federal Maritime Commission OTI licensing, which is what separates a real forwarder from a reseller, and CBP's customs broker licence list |
| Load boards and marketplaces | DAT and Truckstop for lanes and rates, Xometry-style marketplaces for parcel, and the 3PL directories; the engines read the directory listing as the market |
| Trade press | FreightWaves, Journal of Commerce, Supply Chain Dive and Modern Shipper; the rankings and the funding stories are read as credentials |
| Reddit r/FreightBrokers, r/logistics and the ecommerce subreddits | the 'which 3PL do you use' threads, which are the shortlist for the smaller shippers |
What the engines verify before they name you
The engines verify what the US government publishes: the USDOT and MC number with the authority type and safety rating for carriers and brokers, the FMC OTI licence for ocean forwarders and NVOCCs, the CBP licence for customs brokers, the broker's BMC-84 surety bond, and CTPAT membership for anyone claiming a secure supply chain. Print the numbers and the bond, because a logistics company that cannot be resolved in a federal register is left out of the answer.
The same question, three Americas
The engines answer per metro, from pages that name it. How the questions differ across the country for this trade:
- The port and border gateways: Los Angeles and Long Beach, Savannah, Newark, Laredo, El Paso: import, drayage and customs questions, named by port and by trade lane.
- The inland hubs: Chicago, Dallas, Memphis, Columbus, Atlanta, the Inland Empire: warehousing, 3PL and intermodal questions; a fulfilment question almost always names a hub or a two-day ground radius.
- Regional and final mile: the questions name the state or the metro and ask about same-day and appointment delivery, where the nationals cannot answer specifically.
Spanish
Cross-border trucking and Laredo-area operations carry Spanish-language questions from the Mexican side of the lane. For the rest of US logistics, the questions are in English.
What to publish in dollars
Publish what your buyers compare: pick and pack per order, storage per pallet or bin per month, receiving, and the surcharge list for 3PL; per-mile and accessorials for carriers; the customs entry fee for brokers. Rate opacity is the norm in US logistics, which is why the shipper asks an engine, and why a published rate card gets quoted.
The names a US buyer already knows
C.H. Robinson, Total Quality Logistics, XPO, Flexport, ShipBob: the names a buyer arrives with, and the ones the report's comparison questions are written against ('X alternatives', 'local versus X'). Whether the engines put them ahead of you, or in your place, is what the report measures, question by question, with the market set to the United States.
5 metros, one page each
| Metro | A question a buyer there asks |
|---|---|
| Los Angeles | best drayage company at the Port of Long Beach |
| Chicago | best 3PL in Chicago for two day ground coverage |
| Laredo | best customs broker in Laredo for cross border trucking |
| Savannah | best drayage company at the Port of Savannah |
| Memphis | best 3PL in Memphis for air freight and time definite delivery |
Each one carries the licensing authority for this trade in that state, the utility programme or register the question names, the suburbs that carry the volume, and a dollar figure for that metro. A city page with none of that would be a thin copy of this one, so the metros written up are the ones where there is something to say.
What a month of work looks like in the US
The Grow plan's goal for a logistics company here: get named in the five lane-or-service questions where a directory, a load board or a national broker is named and you are not. The work starts with The FMCSA register and SAFER, then the pages of yours the engines quote, per metro and, where the trade needs it, in Spanish, with a rescan on the same questions at month's end. The plans are priced on the home page.
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Questions
What do the engines check before naming a logistics company in the US?
The engines verify what the US government publishes: the USDOT and MC number with the authority type and safety rating for carriers and brokers, the FMC OTI licence for ocean forwarders and NVOCCs, the CBP licence for customs brokers, the broker's BMC-84 surety bond, and CTPAT membership for anyone claiming a secure supply chain.
Are these questions asked in Spanish?
Cross-border trucking and Laredo-area operations carry Spanish-language questions from the Mexican side of the lane. For the rest of US logistics, the questions are in English.
What price should be on the page?
Publish what your buyers compare: pick and pack per order, storage per pallet or bin per month, receiving, and the surcharge list for 3PL; per-mile and accessorials for carriers; the customs entry fee for brokers. Rate opacity is the norm in US logistics, which is why the shipper asks an engine, and why a published rate card gets quoted.
See who the engines name in the US
Your website, region and work email. The score appears in about three minutes, and the report is a link you keep.