Disclosure and Review Policies

What we do and how we do it

Unlike many travel or technology sites, this is a small, fiercely-independent operation, and we’re very proud of that. We need to make money to keep the site running, of course, but whenever there’s a conflict between that and retaining the trust of our readers, we go for the latter.

Of course, just stating our independence doesn’t mean all that much; it’s the detail that matters. Transparency is vital, and so to that end, we’re open about how we make money and what we will and won’t accept from vendors and advertisers.

How We Make Money

Too Many Adapters earns money through advertising and affiliate commissions.

Text, banner, or video adverts are placed into most articles on the site, and if you click on one of them, we’ll earn a commission. We generally have no control over the individual ads that are shown, but block subject matter like pornography and gambling that we don’t wish to be associated with.

If you have a problem with any specific ad you see, take a screenshot of it and let us know via the contact form.

Often, when we link to a product or service, we’ll do so using an affiliate program. In plain English, this means that we may earn a commission if you buy something from the vendor after clicking on that link.

The presence or absence of an affiliate program has no bearing on whether we mention a given product or service, or how we mention it.

We’ve given plenty of negative reviews to products that have affiliate programs, and plenty of positive ones to products that don’t. Still, if you think a given review was influenced by the presence of an affiliate link, be sure to let us know.

These two approaches allow us to pay our hosting costs and our writers, and keep the site alive. Without them, we’d have been forced to shut down years ago.

“Freebies”

As with most other tech sites, we’re often approached by vendors to review their products and services for our audience. We reject anything that’s not directly relevant, or that we’ve already covered in sufficient detail in the past.

When we think there’s a good chance the product or service may be useful to our readers, the vendor will usually provide a sample or trial for us to evaluate. We are always clear upfront that there’s no guarantee of positive coverage, or any coverage at all, as a result of receiving something for review.

We’ve been critical of such products in the past (here’s an example), and will continue to recommend against buying anything that doesn’t provide genuine value to travelers. We also won’t take payment for reviewing a product.

What We Don’t Do

There are many other ways to make money online, most of which we’re not comfortable with. As a result, you won’t ever see us taking money to link to companies for SEO or any other purposes, or take unsolicited “guest posts” from anyone.

You won’t see any “native advertising”, “sponsored content”, or “influencer campaigns” from us either. This is where advertisers pay sites like ours to mention their business positively on the site and social media. It’s common around the web, but we believe it undermines reader trust, and as a result, won’t do it.

We want you to be able to rely on our advice, and to do that we need to stay as independent as possible. In short, this means that we will leave money on the table if we believe taking it would compromise the integrity of what we have to say.

Got any questions about our approach? You’re more than welcome to drop us a line about it!


Legal stuff: Too Many Adapters is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, and other Amazon sites. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.