Disclosure
How review sites make money
How review sites make money
Most product review sites earn through affiliate commission: a retailer pays them a percentage when a reader buys through their link, at no extra cost to the reader. The other two models are advertising, sold against page views, and paid subscription, where readers pay directly and no commercial links appear.
Affiliate commission. The retailer pays a percentage of a sale to the site that referred it. The reader's price is unchanged. This is the most common model and the one the Magoo Media Group portfolio uses.
Advertising. Display ads or sponsored placements sold against traffic. The risk here is the sponsored placement, where the commercial relationship reaches into the editorial itself.
Paid subscription. Readers pay directly and the site carries no commercial links at all. It removes the conflict of interest and it is also the hardest model to start from zero.
What Magoo Media Group does
The sites in the portfolio earn affiliate commission. When a reader follows a link from one of them to a retailer and buys something, the retailer pays that site a percentage of the sale. The reader pays exactly the same price they would have paid going direct.
This hub -- magoomediagroup.com, the site you are reading -- carries no affiliate links and earns nothing from any of it. That is not a small detail. It means this page has no commercial reason to soften anything, and it is why the disclosure here can be blunter than the one you usually get.
Where the portfolio stands today: 1 of the 25 sites is live and the other 24 are still in build. The model above describes how the live sites are funded and how each remaining one will be funded once it launches.
What the commission does not change
Rankings are not for sale. That sentence is easy to write and worth being specific about, so here is what it means in practice across the portfolio:
- Commission rate is never a factor in the order of a list or the score a product receives.
- No brand can pay for a placement, a mention or a higher position.
- No manufacturer sees a verdict, a score or a draft before it publishes.
- Products are recommended against when they deserve it, including popular ones that pay well.
- Where a cheaper option is the better buy, the page says so regardless of what each one earns.
- Where the honest answer is to buy nothing, that is the answer the page gives.
Where the disclosure appears
The US Federal Trade Commission requires that a material connection between a reviewer and a seller is disclosed clearly and conspicuously, close to the recommendation it affects. A gray line in a footer meets the letter of that and misses the point of it.
Across this portfolio the disclosure sits before the links, in the body of the page, in the same type size as everything else. On this hub it appears in the footer of every page and inline in the third paragraph of every brand page -- for example on Heft & Hush and Jack & Torque. The FTC publishes its endorsement guidance at ftc.gov, and it is worth reading if you publish anything commercial yourself.
Questions about the funding
Does affiliate commission change what you recommend?
No. Commission rate is not a ranking factor and is not consulted when a list is ordered. Where a cheaper product with a lower payout is the better buy, that is what the page says. Several sites in the portfolio are built around advice that costs us money, such as telling a reader that last season's model is identical and cheaper.
Do you pay more if you buy through a link?
No. The commission is paid by the retailer out of their margin. The price is the same whether you use a link on one of our sites or go to the retailer directly.
Can a brand pay to appear on one of your sites?
No. There are no paid placements, no sponsored rankings and no advertising deals with editorial conditions attached. A manufacturer cannot buy a position, cannot buy a score and does not see a verdict before it publishes.
Does this hub earn affiliate commission?
No. magoomediagroup.com carries no affiliate links and earns nothing. It exists to say who is behind the portfolio sites and what standards they follow. Only the individual review sites carry commercial links, and each one discloses that on every page.
If something here is unclear, or you think one of our sites has fallen short of it, email contact@magoomediagroup.com. The editorial standards explain how corrections are handled, and the portfolio page lists every site this applies to.
Read the standards this funding sits under
How picks are chosen, how testing works and where it stops, and a checklist for vetting any review site including this one.