Why these standards are published
These standards describe how content is produced here, so that any reader can check whether what they are reading matches what we say we do. They are published as a commitment, not as a statement of intent.
Sources
Every article cites between three and five institution-level sources. Acceptable sources are: UK legislation as published on legislation.gov.uk, guidance published by government departments and agencies, regulators and statutory bodies, recognised sector bodies, and the published documentation of a platform where the subject is that platform's own operating rules.
We do not cite a source whose existence we cannot verify. Where a citation is uncertain, we remove it and rewrite the passage so it does not depend on it.
The bodies referenced most often here are the Advertising Standards Authority and the Committee of Advertising Practice, the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the Office for Product Safety and Standards, the Competition and Markets Authority, the Information Commissioner's Office, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, the Food Standards Agency, the Intellectual Property Office and Google Search Central.
Treatment of numbers
Principal rule: we publish no market figure that cannot be attributed to a cited source.
This expressly includes market sizes, category growth, conversion rates, retail attachment benchmarks, rebooking benchmarks, creator fees, wholesale margins, email open rates, seasonal indices and business valuation multiples. Where that information is not available from a source we trust, the question is answered qualitatively and we explain why.
Where a panel presents a working model rather than a measurement, the footnote states this explicitly. Charts represent only figures attributed to a cited source or models declared as such.
No rankings, no league tables
We do not publish rankings of agencies, suppliers, salons, clinics, brands or products, and we do not publish awards, badges or scored comparisons. We have not assessed these businesses with a methodology capable of ordering them, so we do not order them.
The directory is a paid listing. It is alphabetical, it is labelled as paid, and it confers no editorial endorsement of any kind.
Naming businesses
We do not name a business in order to make a claim about its performance, its results or its quality. We cannot verify such claims, and publishing them would mislead the reader while being unfair to the business named and to its competitors.
Where an illustration is needed, we describe the mechanism rather than attributing it to a business we have not audited.
Links
This publication contains no commercial links. Every article carries a disclosure block saying so.
External links point to regulators, legislation, official guidance and platform documentation. They are placed by the editorial team because a reader may need the primary source, they are never sold, exchanged or requested, and no organisation has paid, in cash or in kind, for a link or a mention on this site.
Separation of commercial and editorial
Directory entries and newsletter sponsorship are commercial arrangements handled separately from editorial. A directory customer or a newsletter sponsor receives no editorial coverage, no influence over what is published, and no advance sight of editorial content.
No article is written, altered, delayed or withdrawn because of a commercial relationship. If we ever cannot maintain that separation on a subject, we will not publish on that subject.
Use of assistance tools
Drafting and editing tools are used in production. Every article is reviewed before publication for accuracy, for the sourcing rules above and for compliance with the numbers rule. Responsibility for everything published rests with the publication regardless of the tools used to produce it.
Regulatory content
Articles that touch advertising rules, product regulation, consumer protection or data protection are explanatory. They are not legal advice and are not a substitute for reading the primary source or taking professional advice on your specific situation.
Regulation changes. Every article carries a review date. Where a rule referenced in an article changes materially, we update the article and record the change.
Corrections
Report an error through the contact page, giving the page and the specific point. We aim to respond within five working days.
Typographical fixes are made without notice. Substantive corrections, meaning anything that changes the meaning of a passage, are made in the article with a dated note recording what changed. We do not remove an article to resolve a complaint about accuracy; we correct it and say what we corrected.
Right of reply
We do not publish claims about identified businesses, so the usual right of reply situation does not arise. If a regulator, statutory body or sector body considers we have described its rules or guidance inaccurately, write to us and we will correct the article and record the correction.