About.com has more than 900 topic sites (Guide sites), consisting of 3.0 million handcrafted, original articles – all created by Guides, who are independent subject matter experts in the topics they cover.
Guides engaged by About.com, or About.com Guides, are real people with passion and expertise in their fields. Their mission is to provide our visitors with solutions that empower them to fulfill the large and small needs of everyday life.
About.com is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards and this vision is shared with the Guides whose content we host. For a copy of the Guide Conflict of Interest Policy, click here.
In order to maintain credibility, we adhere to two guiding principles:
- Objectivity: Guides engaged by About.com don’t give preferential treatment to any outside resource (publication, video, affiliate, website), based on their relationship with the person or company who authors or owns that resource.
- Full Disclosure: Guides on About.com always disclose any relationship with a source that may compromise their objectivity.
All advertising content on About.com is also clearly distinguished from the editorial content by the following labels: advertisement, sponsored links, ads. A full copy of the Guide ethics policy can be found on our Web site.
What Makes Guides Unique?
- Guides do not follow an assignment model. They alone decide on the content to produce based on their expertise and understanding of user needs.
- When creating content, Guides look at their topics holistically from all angles to ensure that they are providing users with the breadth and depth of information needed to accomplish their goals.
- They interact with our users daily. As a result, they’re not only experts on their topics, but also experts on what their audience wants to know about their topics.
- The combination of passion and expertise is what makes About.com’s content and site environment a trusted, valuable resource. This user-centric environment helps brands engage with consumers and is a big part of what drives our results.
- To better understand the people who post quality content on About.com, take a moment to meet some of the Guides.