Editorial Guidelines

The rules every publisher profile on Matlabii News is written and checked against, from where a fact may come from to how a correction is made. If a profile falls short of them, we want to know.

Updated 9 October 2026

Scope

These guidelines apply to every publisher profile in the directory. They describe what a profile must contain, which sources it may rely on, how its claims are checked and what happens when something in it turns out to be wrong. Explanations of the metrics themselves are kept on a separate page, what each figure means.

What Every Profile Must Contain

A profile is not published until it covers each of the following:

  • Identity. What the site is, the subject it covers and the audience it writes for.
  • Ownership. Who runs the site, as far as the site and public records show. Where ownership cannot be established, the profile says so rather than guessing.
  • Revenue. How the site earns, for example through advertising, subscriptions, affiliate links or sponsored articles, based on what can be seen on the site and in its own disclosures.
  • Search figures. Moz Domain Authority and Spam Score, Ahrefs Domain Rating, and Semrush organic traffic, keywords and backlinks, each with the date it was taken.
  • Domain records. Registry dates, the robots.txt rules that apply to AI crawlers, and the sitemaps the site declares.
  • Dates. When the sources were read and when the profile was last reviewed.

Sourcing Standard

Facts about a publisher come from the best source available, in this order of preference:

  1. The publisher's own pages. About and contact pages, editorial policies, contributor or "write for us" guidelines, advertising pages, and ownership or funding disclosures.
  2. Official records. Company filings, registry entries and documents published by the owner or its parent company.
  3. Secondary sources. Reputable press coverage, interviews and industry reporting. These fill gaps or add context, and the profile labels them as secondary, for instance by naming the outlet that reported a fact, so a reader never mistakes them for the publisher's own word.

Each factual statement is tied to a link where a reader can verify it. If the only support for a claim is an anonymous forum post, a marketplace listing or a seller's pitch, the claim stays out.

How Claims Are Checked

Before a profile goes live, and again whenever it is reviewed, each statement is put through the same tests:

  • Trace it. Open the cited page and confirm it says what the profile says. A link that has moved or died is replaced, or the claim is removed.
  • Attribute what cannot be confirmed. If a publisher describes its readership or its editorial team and nothing independent backs that up, the profile presents it as the publisher's own claim, not as fact.
  • Test it against the figures. If a site calls itself a major publication but its measured search reach is small, the profile points out the contrast instead of repeating the description.
  • Record conflicts. When two credible sources disagree, the profile names both rather than choosing the more flattering one.
  • Mark the unknown. A figure that could not be measured is shown as N/A, never as zero, a guess or a value borrowed from a different metric.

How Comparisons Are Made

Profiles sometimes set a publisher against the rest of the directory, for example by saying where its Domain Rating ranks among listed sites or how its domain age ranks within its category. Those statements are never typed by hand. They are calculated from the published figures each time the directory is updated, so they stay correct as publishers are added, removed or re-measured.

A sentence written by hand would be accurate on the day it was written and could turn false as soon as a new publisher joined. Computing every comparison removes that risk, and it means a ranking on one profile always agrees with the same ranking on another.

Corrections and Updates

Anyone can ask for a correction: a publisher, a reader or a buyer. Send the request through contact us and include:

  • the profile and the statement you believe is wrong;
  • what it should say instead;
  • evidence, such as a link to an official page, a filing or a public announcement.

The evidence is weighed against the profile's existing sources. If it holds up, the profile is corrected and its review date changes. If it does not support the change, the profile stays as it is and we tell you what we found.

Search figures are handled differently from written statements. A Domain Authority or traffic number is a reading taken on a stated date, so it cannot be swapped for a number the publisher prefers. If a metric has moved since, the remedy is a newer reading, and the profile shows the new date when it gets one.

Every profile displays the date it was last reviewed. There is no fixed review cycle, so that date is the best guide to how current a profile is.

Writing Standards

  • One site, one profile. Each profile is written from scratch for its publisher. No paragraph is reused with the name swapped, and profiles are compared with one another before publication so that repeated wording is caught and rewritten.
  • No filler. General advice about buying placements belongs in our guide to vetting a guest post site, and definitions belong on the metrics page. A profile spends its words on what is specific to its site.
  • Describe, don't sell. Words like "premium" or "high-authority" are left out. Where a figure supports a point, the figure is shown and the reader can decide what it is worth.
  • Say what is missing. If a site publishes no ownership details or no editorial policy, the profile states that. An absence is useful information for a buyer.
  • Plain language. Technical terms are explained where they appear or linked to the page that explains them.

Sponsored Content

Publishers that accept paid articles differ in how they present them, and that difference matters to readers and to search engines. Each profile notes whether the publisher labels sponsored or contributed posts, for example with a tag, a disclosure line or a separate section, and says plainly when no label could be found.

Buyers are responsible for how their own placements are marked. We expect anyone using the directory to follow the search engines' rules on paid links and to disclose paid content to readers where the law requires it. Our summary of the rules on paid guest posts quotes each rulebook directly. Profiles do not offer advice on disguising a paid placement, and a publisher's willingness to leave paid posts unlabelled is never presented as a selling point.