Our aim as a blog isn’t to make a profit, but we do require funds to maintain the site – as mentioned in our privacy policy.
This page is important to both readers and advertisers.
Paid Content Disclosure
Technology Bloggers has very high standards when it comes to content publishing. These are standards which our authors never compromise, regardless of whether they are writing out of interest, or for some form of incentive. Sometimes our authors are paid, sponsored or incentivised to publish content. In such cases we will always clearly mark the content as sponsored or promotional in some way.
We only accept paid opportunities when we believe there is the potential to add value to the blog. Anyone paying for sponsored material is interested in getting coverage, so it would be counter-intuitive for us to write poor quality content – as nobody would want to read it!
The Law
UK law dictates that paid content must be clearly marked as promotional. Adding a deceleration near paid content such as ‘sponsored’ or ‘advertisement’ is required to ensure that users can distinguish the difference between editorial and paid content.
Most of the countries where we receive visitors from take a very similar approach towards promotional content, including the United States.
Search Engines
As is the case for most websites, search engines provide a considerable amount of Technology Bloggers visitors (or traffic) therefore it is important that we respect their guidelines.
Google and Bing both state that any content which is sponsored must be clearly marked as promotional.
Google also state that any link which exists because money has changed hands should be attributed the rel=”nofollow” tag. This prevents the link from flowing PageRank; which can be thought of as ‘editorial votes’.
Technology Bloggers Stance
Any paid content or advertisements on Technology Bloggers will conform to UK law and Google’s policies.
Articles
Paid articles/reviews will always declare their promotional nature. A disclosure can be found at the start of every article which lets you know the content which follows is in some way sponsored.
We are not obliged to disclose that content is promotional at the top of articles (the disclosure can be anywhere), however we believe that this is the fairest, moth ethical way to operate.
Some advertisers we work with may require additional disclosures.
The fact that content is in some way sponsored will in no way affect its impartiality or the writers stile. As mentioned in our policies:
“editors will never publish content which they believe could harm the blog, would not be beneficial to users, is tasteless, or not relevant to the blog.”
Advertisers are guaranteed that their article will remain on the blog for at least 6 months in its current format. After that time editors may modify, edit or remove the content.
Links
All paid links on Technology Bloggers, anywhere on the blog (in articles or on the sidebar or in the footer) will carry the nofollow attribute. This means they will not flow PageRank in accordance with Google’s guidelines.
Banner Ads
Banner ads will also not flow PageRank and will be clearly marked as sponsored.
Logged in users (guest bloggers, authors and editors) may be provided with an ‘ad free’ experience, and may not see advertisements which appear on the sidebar or in the footer. Logged in users will still see sponsored articles in the same way as any other user.
A Final Note
Technology Bloggers puts its principles before profit.
We will never intentionally deceive readers. If you feel any promotion content is deceiving, please let us know.
We aim to always go above and beyond what the law requires of us in terms of how we treat paid content.
If you are ever concerned about an advertisement or have any further questions on our policies which our advertising policy or privacy policy don’t cover, feel free to contact an editor.