GTL Business Directory turns any WordPress site into a structured business directory. It is deliberately image-free: featured image support is suppressed across nine independent layers so no theme, page builder, SEO plugin or legacy data can reintroduce a thumbnail. Listings render as clean, structured text cards with deterministic coloured monograms instead.

Core features

Business listing post type with 30+ structured fields
Hierarchical Categories (main category + unlimited subcategories) with summary, long intro, SEO title, meta description, focus keywords, custom H1, icon, accent colour, ordering, featured flag and FAQ
Hierarchical Locations (Country > State > City > Area) with all of the above plus location type, latitude/longitude, PIN codes and population
Front-end user registration with a dedicated Business Owner role, honeypot spam protection and email notifications
Owner dashboard with listing table, view counts and inline edit links
Front-end submit/edit form with dependent category dropdowns and opening-hours editor
“All lists” page with faceted sidebar (category, subcategory, location, price, rating, verified, featured), keyword search, eight sort modes and pagination
Single landing page with sticky contact panel, quick stats, services tags, opening hours with today highlighting, social links, related listings and a claim CTA
LocalBusiness, BreadcrumbList, CollectionPage and FAQPage JSON-LD — all without an image property
Admin settings screen for slugs, page assignments, accent colour, per-page count and auto-publish

Shortcodes

[gettoplists_directory] — full listings page
[gettoplists_categories] — main categories with subcategories and summaries
[gettoplists_locations] — primary locations with child cities
[gettoplists_search] — hero search bar
[gettoplists_register] — registration page
[gettoplists_login] — login form
[gettoplists_dashboard] — owner dashboard
[gettoplists_submit] — add/edit listing form

External services

This plugin connects to PayPal to process optional “boost” payments that give a
listing top placement. This connection is only made when the site administrator
explicitly enables PayPal in Directory -> Settings -> PayPal and a user chooses
to purchase a boost. The plugin makes no external requests otherwise.

What is sent and when

When a user clicks a boost package, their browser is redirected to PayPal’s
hosted checkout, at the host www.paypal.com (or www.sandbox.paypal.com in
sandbox mode), path /cgi-bin/webscr. The form sends the item name, price,
currency, the site’s configured PayPal business email, return URLs, and a
reference containing the listing ID and package ID. No personal data is
collected by the plugin at this step; the payer enters their details on
PayPal’s own site.
When PayPal notifies the site of a completed payment via Instant Payment
Notification (IPN), the plugin posts the received payload back to PayPal for
verification, at the host ipnpb.paypal.com (or ipnpb.sandbox.paypal.com in
sandbox mode), path /cgi-bin/webscr. These are POST-only verification
endpoints. This step is required by PayPal to confirm the notification is
genuine. The payload posted back is exactly what PayPal sent, unmodified.

PayPal legal hub (user agreement and privacy statement): https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/home