What the verification levels give you
Three steps: we found it, the owner confirmed it, our bot is inside the channel. What changes at each — with the catalog's numbers.
Every record in the catalog carries a mark saying how we know about it and how far to trust it. There are three steps, and on September 10, 2026 they split like this: «Indexed» — 5,913 records, «Owner verified» — 1, «Metrics verified» — 8. A fourth mark, «Trusted», has not been given to anyone yet: it is for records that passed both the owner's confirmation and a manual editorial check, and there has been no such case.
The first step a record gets without the owner; the other two only with them. Below: what the visitor sees at each step and what changes for the owner.
The mark on a card is about confirmation: who proved the channel is theirs. There is a second sense of the word «verified» — «the numbers can be trusted» — and it depends on no owner at all: either every signal is measured for a channel or it is not. Channels with everything measured and a top grade are collected in a list of their own — verified Telegram channels.
Indexed
We found the record ourselves: through links from other channels, through sitemaps, through a submission. Everything on the page comes from Telegram's public preview — subscribers, post views, reactions, forwards, texts. The score is computed from that data. Of the 5,913 records at this step, 5,585 are channels, 107 are chats, 205 are bots and 16 are mini apps.
The owner of such a record did nothing and probably does not know it exists. The description on the page is ours, written from the posts; nobody answers reviews on the channel's behalf.
Owner verified
The owner has proved the channel is theirs. It takes a minute: a post with a code in the channel, or our bot among the administrators; for a bot or a mini app — a code in the description via @BotFather.
What changes: the owner's own description instead of ours, replies to reviews in the channel's name, an owner badge on the page, and a score badge image for a website or a pinned post — it updates by itself. The metrics stay the same, from the public preview.
On September 10, 2026 there were 9 verified claims, 7 pending and 1 expired; on the pages, the «Owner verified» mark is worn by one record — a bot, which has no third step — while eight channels went further, to the third step.
Metrics verified
Our bot is among the channel's administrators and sees what the preview does not show: exact views of every post rather than rounded ones, and posts right after they go out rather than when we get to reading them.
For the visitor this means one thing: the numbers on the page are the ones the owner sees in their own statistics. For the owner — the score is computed from exact views, and in the rare cases where the preview understates the reach, it shows.
There are 8 such records. All eight are small channels; large ones confirm ownership less often so far, and we name that number rather than hide it.
The bot does not post in your name and does not read private messages — a channel has none. Which rights it needs, it says itself when connecting, and it can be removed from the administrators at any time: the record goes back to the second step rather than disappearing.
What the visitor sees
The mark stands in the page header next to the name and reads as words, not as an icon: «Indexed», «Owner verified», «Metrics verified». Under the metrics, every record has the line «Data as of …» with the measurement date; at the third step the date is the same and the numbers are more precise.
Reviews on a verified channel's page can get a reply in the channel's name, and the visitor sees who is answering. Reviews on a first-step record stay unanswered — not because the owner declined, but because the owner is not on the page.
What verification does not give
A score. No step adds points: the «trust» signal is computed from the age of the record and the completeness of the profile, the same for verified and unverified records. A verified channel with a score of 40 remains a channel with a score of 40.
A place in the lists. Rankings and collections are assembled from numbers, not from marks.
The right to remove the record. A public channel stays in the catalog while it is public; verification gives a voice on the page, not a switch.
How to verify
On your channel's page — the button «Verify ownership». The bot then gives you a code and checks it itself. A claim lives for a limited time: of 17 claims, one managed to expire — the code was never placed, and the claim had to be filed again.