Advertising and disclosure

This page explains how Websarb makes money, what advertisers can and cannot buy, and how we handle the fact that our owner also runs a marketing agency. We would rather state all of this plainly than leave you to work it out.

How the publication is funded

Websarb intends to carry display advertising, served through Google AdSense, and later to offer optional reader subscriptions. Articles are not locked behind either. At the time of writing, advertising is not yet live on the site.

What advertising does not buy

This is the part that matters:

• Advertising does not buy coverage. Advertisers are not told what we are working on, do not see articles before publication, and cannot request, kill or alter a piece.
• We do not sell links. Not in articles, not in the footer, not as “resource page placements”, not under any other label.
• We do not accept sponsored posts or paid guest articles. If someone offers to pay for placement, the answer is no, and repeat offers get the sender blocked.
• We do not accept payment to remove or amend an article. Corrections are made because something is wrong, never because someone paid.

If you approach us about any of the above, we will decline. It is not a negotiating position.

Our owner, and the link in our footer

Websarb is published by Arbsbuy LLC, which also runs the digital marketing agency Arb Digital. Two businesses with the same owner, and we think you should be told that rather than discover it.

There is one card in our footer promoting that agency. It carries rel="sponsored", which is the attribute Google specifies for links placed for promotional reasons. That is deliberate. A publication passing ranking value to its owner’s commercial site is precisely what search engines classify as a link scheme, and doing it quietly would be dishonest to both readers and search engines. So the link is labelled, disclosed here, and passes no ranking value.

The agency does not choose what Websarb publishes, does not review articles, and no piece is commissioned, edited or rejected to suit it.

Links inside articles

Writers may include at most two outbound links per article, and every one carries nofollow. This is enforced by the site automatically rather than left to an editor to remember. It means there is no ranking benefit in placing a link with us, which is the simplest way to stop people trying.

Any commercial relationship behind a product a writer recommends must be disclosed to us at submission. Undisclosed relationships mean we do not work with that writer again.

Affiliate links

We do not currently use affiliate links. If that ever changes, we will say so on this page and label affected articles clearly, rather than quietly adding tracking to recommendations you already trusted.

Advertising and your privacy

When advertising goes live, Google may set cookies to measure and personalise it, acting as an independent controller of that data. We do not enable any of that before you have agreed through the cookie notice, and choosing “essential only” leaves it switched off with no loss of access to anything on the site. See the privacy policy for the detail.

Advertising enquiries

Genuine display advertising enquiries are welcome through the contact page, choosing “press or partnership”. Please read this page first: enquiries about paid links, sponsored articles or “collaborations” that amount to the same thing will be declined without a detailed reply.