Sponsorship and paid link disclosure
How paid placements on IoT Crest are labeled for readers and marked for search engines, and what a sponsor does and does not get.
What a sponsored placement is
IoT Crest is funded by selling two kinds of placement to companies in the IoT space. A sponsored article is a full article on a subject the sponsor chooses within one of our topics, written and edited by the IoT Crest editorial team. A link placement is a single link to the sponsor's page added to an article we have already published, in a sentence written by us. In both cases the sponsor pays for the placement and for the editorial time. They do not buy the facts, the wording of the article, or any claim we cannot check.
How a placement is labeled for readers
A sponsored article carries a "Sponsored" stamp at the top of the page, above the headline, naming the sponsor and linking to the editorial policy. It appears in its topic hub and on the home page with the same stamp beside its date. An article that contains a paid link placement carries a short note in the text saying that the article contains a paid link and who paid for it. Nothing paid for is presented as an independent recommendation.
How a paid link is marked for search engines
Every paid link on IoT Crest carries the rel="sponsored" attribute. That attribute is the mechanism search engines ask publishers to use for links that exist because of a commercial arrangement, and a link marked this way passes no ranking credit. We add it automatically: paid links are declared in the article's source and the site cannot publish one without the attribute. We do not sell links that pass ranking credit, and we decline inquiries that ask for them.
Links to standards bodies, specifications, datasheets and documentation are added by the editorial team because a reader would want them, and they are not paid. Those links carry no sponsored attribute.
What a sponsor gets
- A place in front of readers who build, buy or run connected systems, on a page written for a question those readers actually search.
- An article or sentence edited to the same standard as everything else on the site, which is what makes the placement worth reading.
- A clearly labeled placement that stays live for as long as the article does, with the sponsor named in the article's structured data as well as on the page.
What a sponsor does not get
- A link that passes ranking credit. Paid links carry
rel="sponsored", always. - Control over facts, limitations we would otherwise mention, or any statement we cannot verify.
- Placement in a category we refuse: gambling, adult content, pharmaceuticals, and crypto schemes.
- An unlabelled mention anywhere on the site.
Want to sponsor an article or place a link? What is included and how to inquire are on the advertise page.