Editorial standards
This page states how Example works: what evidence is admissible, how corrections are handled, what is disclosed, and what a subject is entitled to. It is published so that the process can be checked rather than assumed.
Evidence
Every score is produced from public evidence only. No analytics access, no interviews, no privileged data, and nothing a subject tells us in confidence. If a figure cannot be reproduced by a reader with a browser, it does not appear in a teardown.
Where a dimension cannot be assessed from public evidence, it is scored at the midpoint and flagged in the post rather than guessed at. Where a measurement is taken in a lab tool rather than from field data, the post says so, and a lab figure is never presented as though it were a field figure.
Every teardown records the rubric version it was scored against and the date it was scored. Scores produced under different rubric versions are not directly comparable.
Right of reply
Subjects are contacted before publication and given seven days to respond. Publication does not wait beyond that.
Any reply is appended to the teardown in full and unedited. We do not summarise a reply, and we do not respond to it inline.
A subject who ships the prioritized fixes can request a re-score at no cost. The result is published as an update on the original page rather than as a new post, so the history of the score stays in one place.
Corrections
Errors are corrected on the page where they appeared, with a dated note describing what changed. Corrections are not made silently.
- Factual error affecting a score. The score is recalculated, the composite updated, and the change noted with its date
- Factual error not affecting a score. Corrected in place with a dated note
- Typographical error. Corrected without a note
If a correction changes a composite, the archive figure changes with it, because both are driven by the same stored values.
Disclosure
Where Example earns from something it recommends, that is disclosed next to the recommendation rather than in the footer.
- Paid links are marked as paid, in the body of the post, before the link
- Sponsored placements are labelled as sponsored and are never scored content
- A subject who buys an audit is not scored publicly while that engagement is live, and any prior public score is not revised as part of it
- Nomination does not affect the queue position of a paying client, and payment does not buy a score
The rubric page states what is scored and what is excluded. Commercial relationships are not an input to any dimension.
What we will not do
- Score a site we have a financial interest in
- Accept payment to raise a score, remove a teardown, or delay one
- Publish a figure we cannot source
- Present a projection as a measurement
- Use a subject private data, even when offered