Editorial Policy

The Editorial Policy page for WhatIsBlackfriday explains the standards behind every deal guide, buying recommendation, and shopping event roundup published on this site. Readers use our pages to make spending decisions, and a policy that governs those decisions should be written down where anyone can read it.

This page covers who writes for the site, how content is researched and verified, how affiliate relationships are kept separate from editorial judgment, how corrections are handled, and what happens when a page falls short of the standard. It is the reference point for everything we publish.

The short version is simple: research first, publish second, correct fast, and never let a payment decide what a reader sees. The rest of this page explains how those principles work in practice across our Black Friday deal coverage, Cyber Monday sales guides, and year-round buying advice.

Our Mission and Editorial Purpose

WhatIsBlackfriday exists to make the holiday sales season easier to understand. The retail calendar has stretched from a single Friday into weeks of early offers, member pricing, and staggered rollouts, and shoppers deserve a source that explains the structure rather than just repeating the headlines.

Our editorial purpose is to help readers spend less and regret less. That means publishing deal pages that hold up under scrutiny, buying guides that explain trade-offs honestly, and coverage that treats a reader’s budget as something worth protecting rather than something to be rushed.

We are not here to celebrate every discount a retailer announces. A percentage off an inflated list price is not news, and a doorbuster on a product nobody should buy is not a deal. Our job is to sort real savings from noise, and this policy is how we hold ourselves to it.

Who Writes for What Is Black Friday?

Editors and writers with backgrounds in consumer technology research, price analysis, and editorial work produce the content on this site. The people who research a category are the same people who write the guide and answer reader questions about it, which keeps the coverage consistent from start to finish.

Writers are assigned to categories based on familiarity, not convenience. A guide to gaming monitors is written by someone who understands refresh rates and panel types, and a guide to kitchen appliances is written by someone who knows which features matter in daily use. Expertise is matched to the topic.

Every page carries a byline or an editorial attribution, so readers know who stands behind the recommendation. Anonymous coverage is not part of how this site works, because accountability starts with a name attached to the work.

What We Publish

Our coverage falls into a few clear types, and each type has its own standard. Deal roundups list current offers that have passed price verification. Buying guides explain what to look for in a category and name the products worth considering. Event guides explain how Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Amazon Prime Day actually work.

We also publish explainers on the mechanics of shopping, how price matching works, how return policies change during the holidays, and why some categories hit their price floor before the main event. These pages exist because the structure of the season is often more useful to know than any single deal.

We do not publish filler. A page that restates a press release, lists products without pricing context, or exists only to fill a keyword gap does not meet the standard. Only topics with real research behind them get published.

How Content Is Researched

Every guide starts with the category, not the product. Before we evaluate a specific model, we map out what matters in that category: the specifications that affect real use, the price ranges that make sense, and the features worth paying for versus those that are just marketing filler.

We then build a shortlist from products that show up consistently in credible reviews, hold their value, and have a track record of availability. Products that only exist to look appealing in a Black Friday ad do not make the list. The shortlist is where most of the filtering happens.

Sources are layered. Manufacturer specifications give the baseline facts, but we never treat a brand’s claims as the whole story. Independent reviews, user feedback at scale, price history data, and our own testing fill in the gaps. When sources disagree, we say so rather than picking the number that makes the deal look better.

How We Verify Prices

Price verification is the discipline that separates a deals site from a coupon dump. For every product we feature, we look at recent selling prices across major retailers, not just the list price. A product marked down from an inflated number is not a deal, no matter how large the percentage sounds.

We use price history tools to see where a product has actually sold over recent weeks and months. That tells us whether a current offer is near the product’s real price floor or whether the retailer has simply reset the starting point to make the discount look bigger.

During major events, we re-check prices more often, because offers change within hours. A price verified in the morning may be gone by the afternoon, and our pages are updated when that happens rather than left standing on an expired number. The checkout price is always the final word, and we make that clear on our deal pages instead of burying it.

How We Handle Testing

When we can test a product directly, we do. That means using it the way a normal owner would—setting it up, living with it, and noting what breaks, what annoys, and what the spec sheet does not mention. Testing notes go into the review alongside the research, not instead of it.

Not every product can be tested before publication. During fast-moving sale events, some coverage relies solely on specification sheets, credible third-party reviews, and pricing data. When that is the case, the guide says so plainly. We imply a hands-on test happened only if it actually did.

Review units are part of this picture. We purchase some products with our own money, borrow some from brands, and receive others for evaluation. A free unit earns no special treatment, and products we would not recommend to a family member do not make our pages regardless of how they arrived.

How We Keep Editorial and Commercial Separate

Affiliate commissions are the primary way this site earns money, and we explain them in full on our Affiliate Disclosure page. The important point for this policy is the separation: commission rates are not part of the selection criteria, and retailers cannot pay for placement in our deal guides.

No retailer sees our coverage before we publish it. Nobody outside the editorial team reviews a page in advance, and no company can pay to change a ranking, remove a criticism, or add a recommendation. A brand that wants a better review is welcome to make a better product.

We also do not accept paid placements inside our deal guides, sponsored listicles presented as editorial recommendations, or gifts and hospitality from brands we are actively covering. A free weekend at a company event is not a bribe in the legal sense, but it is close enough that we would rather skip it.

How We Use AI in the Editorial Process

Some tools in our workflow use automation to speed up research pulling pricing data, flagging price changes, and formatting tables. These tools assist the process but do not replace it. Every recommendation, every ranking, and every sentence of analysis is reviewed by a human editor before publication.

We do not publish fully automated deal pages with no human review. A price feed can flag a discount, but only a person can judge whether that discount is real against the product’s price history. That judgment is the core of what this site does, and it does not get outsourced.

If our use of automation changes in a way that affects what readers see, this policy will be updated to describe it in the same plain terms used here. Transparency about the process is part of the standard, not an afterthought.

How We Handle Images and Screenshots

Images on this site are either original screenshots, licensed stock photography, or product images provided under a retailer’s affiliate program terms. We do not lift images from other publications without permission, and we do not use screenshots in a way that misrepresents a product or a price.

Screenshots of deals are timestamped when it matters. A price screenshot from the start of Black Friday means something different than one taken a week later, and our pages make that distinction clear rather than letting an old screenshot imply a current offer.

Product images are used to help readers identify what they are buying, not to inflate a claim. If an image shows a configuration that differs from the product being recommended, a higher-end model, or a bundle that is not included, we correct it or replace it rather than leave the mismatch in place.

How We Handle Corrections

Errors happen, and the measure of a publication is what it does about them. When a reader reports a wrong spec, an expired price, or a mislabeled product, we verify the report, fix the page, and note the correction rather than quietly editing it away.

Corrections are prioritized during sale events, when a wrong price can cost a reader real money. A confirmed pricing error is usually checked and updated the same day. Slower errors, a dated spec, and an outdated comparison are fixed on the next review cycle.

We also correct ourselves proactively. When our own rechecks catch a problem before a reader does, the page is fixed and the change is noted. A correction log is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign that the process is actually running.

How We Update Content

Prices and availability change constantly, especially during November. Our deal pages carry a last-updated date, and we revisit them throughout the sale season. When a price changes, stock runs out, or a better offer appears elsewhere, the page is edited rather than left behind.

Guides are also reviewed after events end. A Black Friday TV guide written in November gets checked again in December to see which offers held, which prices bounced back, and what the final picture looked like. That post-event review feeds into next year’s coverage.

Evergreen buying guides get their own review cycle. A laptop guide written in spring is re-checked before the fall sale season, because new models launch, prices shift, and a recommendation that was accurate in March may not be in October. Stale advice is not acceptable on a site built around timing.

How We Handle Conflicts of Interest

Writers disclose any financial relationship with a brand before covering it. If an editor owns stock in a company, works for a competitor, or has a personal connection to a product’s maker, that is flagged before the assignment is made, and the writer is reassigned if the connection is material.

The same rule applies to gifts, loans, and hospitality. Anything of value received from a brand being covered is disclosed internally, and anything that could reasonably look like influence is declined. The bar is not whether the gift changed the coverage; the bar is whether a reasonable reader might wonder if it did.

These rules are not decorative. A deals site’s entire value rests on the reader trusting that the recommendations are clean, and conflicts of interest are the fastest way to break that trust. We would rather lose a review unit than lose the standard.

How We Handle Reader Feedback

Reader feedback is part of the editorial process, not an afterthought. Comments about the confusing guide structure, unclear pricing notes, and categories we undercovered have all led us to change how we write our deal pages. Telling us what did not help is as useful as telling us what did.

Corrections reported by readers are treated as the highest-priority feedback, because they affect purchasing decisions directly. A confirmed error is fixed quickly, and the reader who reported it is told what changed. Other feedback is reviewed on a regular cycle and shapes future coverage.

We do not delete critical comments or hide negative feedback. A page that only shows praise is not a page that can be trusted, and we would rather have an honest comment section than a quiet one.

How We Enforce This Policy

This policy is not a suggestion. Editors and writers are expected to follow it on every assignment, and deviations are treated as a performance issue, not a style choice. A page that skips price verification or hides a conflict of interest does not meet the bar, no matter how well it reads.

The enforcement is practical. Pages are reviewed against this policy before publication, and spot checks continue after. If a pattern of problems shows up in a writer’s work, the issue is addressed directly rather than papered over with more edits.

Readers are part of the enforcement too. Every correction report, every question about a recommendation, and every piece of feedback is a check on the process. A policy that only the staff can see is not much of a policy, which is why this page exists in the first place.

What This Policy Does Not Cover

This policy governs editorial content, the deal guides, buying advice, and event coverage. It does not replace the Affiliate Disclosure, which explains how the site earns money, or the Review Methodology, which explains how individual products are evaluated. Those pages work alongside this one.

It also does not cover legal questions like returns, warranties, or disputes with a retailer. Those are between the reader and the store, and our pages point readers toward the retailer’s own terms rather than trying to speak for them.

If a question falls outside this policy, the contact page is the place to ask. We answer questions about coverage decisions, corrections, and the standards behind them directly, because a policy you cannot question is not much of a policy.

Thank you for reading this far. A shopper who understands how a deals site operates is harder to mislead, and that is the outcome this policy is built for.