Editorial standards

Sourcing

Only primary sources are cited: search engine developer documentation, Schema.org, the UK Advertising Codes and the ASA, GMC guidance, the CQC, the MHRA, the JCCP, web.dev, the W3C and NICE. Every source used by a module is listed at the foot of that module, and the list on any module is complete.

We do not cite secondary commentary, vendor blogs or studies we have not read. Where a claim would require a source we cannot verify, the claim is removed rather than softened.

Numbers

We do not publish invented statistics, industry benchmarks, average conversion rates or any figure without a named primary source. This is a stricter rule than it sounds, and it removes a great deal of the material that ordinarily fills marketing writing. Where a module would benefit from a figure that does not reliably exist, it describes the shape of the thing instead.

Claims about businesses

This publication does not rank, review, score, compare or recommend clinics or marketing agencies. It publishes no best-of lists, no top-ten pages and no award-style content of any kind. Comparative claims about named businesses cannot be substantiated by a party that has not assessed them, and publishing them would be advertising in the shape of editorial.

Links

Outbound links go to primary sources: regulators, standards bodies and developer documentation. There is exactly one outbound commercial link on this entire site, on the appendix, and the page carrying it states plainly that it is editorial, was not sold, and is not conditional on any coverage. Every other page states that it carries no commercial links at all.

Sponsorship

Series sponsorship is labelled at the head of the part it sponsors. A sponsor sees no module before publication, influences no module's content, and is never linked from within a module body. Rates are published on the sponsorship page rather than negotiated privately.

Software in drafting

We use software tools in research and drafting. Every module is reviewed by a person before it is published, and that person is accountable for its accuracy. We do not publish unreviewed generated text.

Corrections

Factual errors are corrected in place, promptly, with the date of the correction noted. Modules carry a review date. Where guidance we cite changes, the module is updated rather than annotated at the bottom, because a reader assumes a page reads as it does today.