Editorial rules before publication.

Non-negotiables

• No backdated publishing dates.
• No fake authors, reviewers, tests or screenshots.
• No forced positive ranking for any brand, including related parties.
• No hidden paid, affiliate or material-relationship links.
• No fake aggregate ratings.
• No publishing without a named human review step.
• No black-hat acquisition. No PBNs, link spam, cloaking, doorway pages, hidden text, link injection, or AI-generated review fabrications. No keyword-stuffing, no comment-spam, no fake testimonials.
• No paid placement dressed as editorial. If a piece is sponsored it is labelled as such at the top of the page and in the page source.
• We would rather have fewer visitors than artificial ones. If a traffic source requires lying — about a file we never opened, an author who doesn't exist, or a relationship we didn't disclose — we don't take it.

Authorship

All bylines refer to real people. Authors have public profiles on our authors page, with disclosed affiliations and editorial scope. Where multiple people contribute, each contribution is attributed.

Dates

The published date on an article is the date that article was first made publicly available. The modified date is updated only when content changes substantively (corrections, factual updates, methodology version bump). Cosmetic or accessibility changes do not trigger a modified date.

Evidence and methodology

Scored reviews must follow the published methodology and reference the methodology version in use. If the methodology changes, prior reviews remain valid under the version they were scored against.

Acquisition (SEO, distribution, partnerships)

Search and social distribution are pursued through legitimate practice only — well-structured content, accurate metadata, internal linking that reflects editorial relationships, and citations from publications we have actually earned. We do not buy links. We do not exchange links. We do not place comments. We do not run private blog networks. We do not use AI to manufacture review-shaped content for ranking purposes.

Corrections

Substantive corrections are noted at the top of the article with a timestamp. Cosmetic or typographic edits are not flagged. Email editors@thelayer.co to report errors.

AI use disclosure

Research and drafting may use AI assistance. All published pages are reviewed and edited by named human editors before publication. AI-generated images, charts or fabricated quotations are not used. AI is never used to invent test results, review data, or aggregate ratings.