Affiliate Disclosure

How this site makes money, and exactly what that does and does not change.

Goods Review Lab is reader-supported. Some of the links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, we may earn a commission. You pay the same price you would have paid anyway.

The short version

Some outbound links are affiliate links.
The site also displays advertising, chosen by an ad system rather than by us.
A commission never decides what we recommend.
We do not accept payment for a positive conclusion.
No brand or retailer gets editorial approval over anything published here.

Which programmes we take part in

We participate in affiliate programmes operated by third-party affiliate networks, and in some cases directly with brands. At the time of writing those programmes include PartnerBoost and Levanta. This list changes as the site grows; if we join additional programmes, including retailer programmes such as Amazon Associates, they are covered by this same page.

How an affiliate link works

When you click an affiliate link, the merchant or the affiliate network records that the visit came from this site — usually with a cookie or a tracking parameter in the URL. If you then buy something, the merchant pays us a percentage of the sale.

That tracking happens on their systems, not ours. We never see your order, your name, your address, your email or your payment details. What reaches us is an aggregate commission report: a date, a programme, and an amount.

What the commission does not change

It does not buy a conclusion. A product that does not deserve a recommendation does not get one because it pays better. Where two products are genuinely equivalent, we say so and let you choose on price or availability.
It does not buy silence. If a product we link to has a known fault, the page says so, in the same guide that links to it.
It does not buy placement. Being on a shortlist is not for sale, and we do not rank by commission rate.

Editorial independence

Recommendations are written before commercial links are attached, and a guide is not revised to make a product easier to sell. If a guide is materially updated — because a product changed, was discontinued, or the evidence moved — we note the update on the page.

Advertising on this site

Alongside affiliate links, this site displays advertising, including advertising served by Google. Ads are selected by an automated advertising system, not by us. We do not choose which ads appear, we do not know in advance which advertisers will be shown on a given page, and advertisers have no influence over what we write.

Advertising and affiliate income are both ways this site pays for itself. Neither changes a recommendation, and neither buys a conclusion — the rules in the section above apply to both.

For what advertising cookies do, and how to opt out of personalised advertising, see the privacy page.

Why we disclose this at all

Because it is the law in the United States, and because it is the right thing to do anywhere. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's guidance on endorsements and testimonials (16 CFR Part 255) requires a material connection between a publisher and a seller to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, and close to the recommendation itself rather than buried at the bottom of the page.

That is why the disclosure also appears as a banner at the top of every page on this site, and in the footer of every guide.

Questions

If anything here is unclear, or you want to know whether a specific link is an affiliate link, get in touch.

Last updated: 26 September 2026.