Editorial independence
What separates the editorial team from the commercial team, and how you can tell paid placement apart from editorial judgement on any page.
The separation
Advertising funds the platform. It does not buy a position, a rating or a quadrant. In practice that means four rules that hold without exception.
- A supplier can never see, review or approve an article about them before it is published.
- Being a paying customer is not a criterion in any list, ranking or Matrix position.
- Sponsored placement is bought by the slot and labelled on every appearance, never blended into an organic list.
- No advertiser gets to veto an article, and cancelling a contract does not remove one.
How to tell them apart
Every piece of content carries a label. If it does not say sponsored, nobody paid for it.
News
Guide
List
Report
Sponsored
Corrections
When we get something wrong we correct the article and say what changed. We do not silently edit a published piece — a correction that nobody can see is not a correction.
Sources
Research published here is built on our own review and directory data, with the method attached so it can be checked. When we use an outside source, we name it.