How these chapters are written and kept accurate

Sources

Chapters are based on documents published by regulators and legislators: in this edition the US Federal Trade Commission (including the Endorsement Guides and the rule on consumer reviews as published in the Code of Federal Regulations), the UK Advertising Standards Authority and Committee of Advertising Practice, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, and UK legislation. The chapter on link attributes also relies on Google Search Central, because only the search engine can say how it treats its own link attributes.

Codes, charters and guides published by trade bodies or industry groups are not used as sources and are not reproduced or paraphrased. Industry commentary, rumours and third-party studies are not used as the basis for any statement. Where the regulators' guidance is silent or unclear, the chapters say so rather than filling the gap.

Information, not legal advice

The handbook describes published guidance in general terms. Rules differ between countries, change over time and depend on the facts of each case. Nothing here is legal advice. For a decision that matters, read the cited documents in full and talk to a qualified adviser.

Writing

• Plain language, with technical terms explained the first time they appear.
• Source material is paraphrased, not copied. Where a short phrase is quoted, it is marked with quotation marks and attributed.
• Examples of disclosure wording and publishing situations are invented to illustrate a point. They describe no real person or business, and they are labelled as examples.

Claims we do not make

The handbook does not promise that following it will make anyone compliant, does not present made-up results or endorsements, does not name products or suppliers to use, and does not imply any relationship with a regulator, a search engine or a trade body. If you find a sentence that seems to do any of these things, it is a mistake and will be corrected.

Links

In this first edition, cited documents are named but not linked, so that every page can be reviewed before any outbound link is added. This site has no affiliate links. Any paid or sponsored link added in future would be disclosed on the page next to the link and marked with the appropriate link attribute, as the chapters themselves describe.

Updates and corrections

Chapters will be re-checked against their sources when those sources change. A correction that changes the meaning of a chapter will be noted at the end of that chapter with the date. There is no contact route yet, so corrections currently come from that periodic re-checking rather than from reader reports.

Use of AI

The chapters were drafted with an AI system from the cited documents. A line-by-line check against those documents and an independent human editorial review have not been done yet. The about page describes how the site was made and explains its independence from the organisation that previously used this domain.