Editorial Standards

Updated July 3, 2026 · These rules are binding on everything we publish

Independence

Rankings and scores are never influenced by payment. Commercial arrangements are tracked separately from editorial scoring, and no vendor can pay to change a score, a rank, or a recommendation.
Comparison pages use a published, transparent methodology with weighted criteria defined before scoring. See the methodology page.
Sponsored placements, if they ever exist, will be labeled “Sponsored” and never mixed silently into editorial rankings.

Truthfulness

No invented anything: no fabricated discounts, partnerships, capabilities, customer counts, prices, commissions, reviews, or testimonials — ever.
“Review” means tested. That word is reserved for products genuinely used hands-on. Pages based on public documentation carry the label: “Based on vendor documentation and public sources; not hands-on testing.”
Every price has a source and a date. Vendor prices trace to the vendor’s published pricing page with a verification date shown. High-value commercial pages are rechecked at least quarterly.
Facts, assumptions, and opinions are distinguished. Where we infer or interpret, we say so.

Legal and factual sourcing

Legal claims prefer primary sources: statutes, state agencies, official forms, courts, recognized professional bodies. Every important claim carries its citation and access date.
Verification depth is disclosed: where we fetched and read statute text, we say “verified”; where verification was secondary, the page says so and tells you to check the text. See any state section on the state hub for this in practice.
We explain uncertainty rather than hiding it, and we never invent a legal requirement. Negative claims (“no state law requires X”) are labeled as such, since absence is harder to verify than presence.
Standing disclaimer on all relevant pages: educational information, not legal, tax, accounting, engineering, insurance, or reserve-study advice. Full disclaimer.

Quality bar for every published page

Before publication, every page must have: a defined reader and task; a documented target query; material value beyond what already ranks; current, traceable sources; a useful next step; internal links in and out; a visible update date; and a QA pass for errors, broken links, and mobile rendering. No content is published to meet a quota.

Corrections

Factual errors get priority handling: verified corrections are made promptly, the page’s update date changes, and material corrections are noted on the page. Report anything — a changed price, a superseded statute, a typo — via the contact page.