Editorial Disclosures

How We Make Money

BoatGuider is funded through three revenue streams, in order of contribution to our operating budget:

1. Affiliate commissions (~70% of revenue). When you click certain links to retailers (West Marine, Defender, Amazon, Fisheries Supply, etc.) and make a purchase, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. These links are automatically tagged with rel="nofollow sponsored" per Google's guidelines.
2. Display advertising (~20% of revenue). We run privacy-respecting display ads via a single ad partner (Carbon Ads). No programmatic advertising, no real-time bidding, no behavioral tracking. Ads are contextual only — boating-related advertisers on boating-related content.
3. Sponsored content (~10% of revenue). We accept a limited number of sponsored articles per quarter. These are always clearly labeled "Sponsored" at the top, never appear in our main article feed, and follow our editorial standards for factual accuracy.

Our Affiliate Firewall

Affiliate relationships never influence our ratings or recommendations. Specifically:

• Editorial team does not see affiliate reports. Our captains and writers have zero access to affiliate performance data. They cannot know which articles generate the most commission.
• Commercial team does not see reviews pre-publication. Our partnerships lead cannot read an article before it is published, and has no authority to request changes.
• We recommend non-affiliate options when they are better. If a product we tested is not available via an affiliate partner but is the best in its category, we recommend it anyway — and link to the manufacturer direct.

Current Affiliate Partners

As of January 2026, we have active affiliate relationships with the following retailers. This list is updated within 30 days of any new partnership:

• Amazon Associates — commissions range 1-4% depending on category
• West Marine Affiliate Program — 5% base commission
• Defender Industries Affiliate — 4% base commission
• Fisheries Supply Affiliate — 5% base commission
• Go2Marine Affiliate — 6% base commission
• eBay Partner Network — variable, 1-3% typically

Commission percentages are public information from each retailer's affiliate program terms. We do not negotiate higher rates in exchange for preferential coverage — and we have declined partnership offers that required such arrangements.

How Affiliate Links Are Marked

Our MDX processing pipeline automatically applies rel="noopener noreferrer" to every external link, and promotes the rel attribute to nofollow sponsored when the link destination matches our affiliate partner list (see lib/mdx.ts). This is done programmatically — authors do not need to remember to tag links, and cannot override the policy.

Sponsored Content Policy

Sponsored content is accepted only under the following conditions:

• Clearly labeled "Sponsored" in the article header
• Authored by our editorial team (not the sponsor)
• Subject to our standard fact-checking process
• Excluded from sitemap priority weighting
• Tagged with rel="sponsored" on all outbound links
• Never appears alongside a review of the same product category

We accept a maximum of 6 sponsored articles per quarter. Current quarter availability is published at partnerships@boatguider.com.

Reader-Supported Alternatives

If you would prefer to support BoatGuider without using affiliate links, you can:

• Share our articles on social media or with your boating club
• Subscribe to our newsletter (free, no ads in emails)
• Send us a tip via our Stripe-supported reader fund (coming Q2 2026)
• Hire one of our captains for a delivery or survey (separate business)

Corrections

If you believe any article on BoatGuider contains a factual error, please email editor@boatguider.com. We investigate every claim within 7 days, publish corrections within 48 hours of verification, and preserve the original text as strikethrough diff for full transparency.

Contact

Questions about this disclosures page? Email editor@boatguider.com.