Smashing Magazine’s Publishing Policy

• By Smashing Editorial
• December 27th, 2007
• Smashing Magazine
• 15 Comments

We would like to draw your attention to something that is probably obvious to most and that has been the foundation of Smashing Magazine for almost five years now.

The Smashing Magazine editorial team does not publish articles arbitrarily. We follow a strict set of rules and guidelines. Every article published on Smashing Magazine fulfills certain criteria: quality of content is important to us, and our job is to advocate for and protect the interests of our readers and the design community. Every article is reviewed by at least two independent experts before it gets published on Smashing Magazine. In order for the article to get published, it has to receive at least two positive reviews.

The rules listed below are crucial for all articles published here on Smashing Magazine. We work very hard to follow all of these rules as best we can; they explicitly guide our editing, writing and communication. To be clear, Smashing Magazine aims to be a professional and independent online publication that is neither controlled nor influenced by third parties; neither our advertisers nor our partners have any influence on our content or editing process.

We continually revise and update these rules to make sure that the quality of our content is never compromised. Their presentation below is smartly illustrated by Andrea Austoni.

Publishing Policy

• Smashing Magazine (SM) does not publish any sponsored articles or paid content.
• SM does not publish press releases or any other public relations (PR) content.
• SM articles have no hidden advertisements. All advertisements are marked as such.
• SM does not participate in any kind of affiliate marketing. There is one exception: for our own products we are an Amazon Associate.



• SM does not influence the opinions of its writers or contributors and does not force them to tailor their work to fit our personal interests, objectives or opinions.
• Advertisers and sponsors have no influence on SM’s content.
• SM always covers its own travel expenses and other fees related to research.
• SM never uses donated products as prizes for its contests and giveaways. SM purchases these products at its own cost. (Exceptions are giveaways on Twitter and Facebook.)
  
• SM does not participate in any kind of partner-linking system.
• Links in SM articles are not for sale. SM never places links as favors to business partners or any third parties (except the”about-us”-page).
• SM respects the rights of authors, designers and developers. SM would never publish links to illegal sources that reproduce the work of others or that violate author rights if we are able to detect illegal sources or copyright infringement through a reasonable effort by double-checking material to be published.
  
• All editors, regular writers and guest authors of SM get paid for their work.
• SM is happy to receive constructive criticism and suggestions from readers and friends; but it would never perform favors in return for them. SM’s recommendations are based on the expertise of its authors and are made in the best interests of its readers and the Web design community.

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