Editorial policy

Last updated: 13 May 2026

Summary: AI-assisted research, human fact-checking against primary sources, honest dateModified, no scraped content, no automated mass publishing, sources cited in-line, errors corrected within 48 hours.

Why this page exists

The domain rechargevodafone.co.uk was acquired with a legacy of automatically-generated content from a previous operator. In May 2026 we performed a complete rebuild. This page documents the editorial standards we now hold ourselves to — publicly, so anyone (readers, journalists, regulators, search engines) can verify our practice matches our claims.

1. Sourcing

  • Primary sources first. Government databases (gov.uk, ONS, ICO), brand-official help pages (vodafone.co.uk, o2.co.uk, bt.com, ee.co.uk), national broadcasters (BBC, ITV), and the brand-owned video pages of advertisers (YouTube channels of Tesco, Sainsbury's, John Lewis, etc.). We cite them in-line.
  • Two-source minimum on identifications. Cast and music identifications for adverts are cross-checked against at least two independent sources where possible (brand YouTube + talent agency listing, or production company credits + ASA database).
  • When we can't verify, we say so. If a fact is not verifiable from a primary source, we say "this is not officially confirmed" rather than guessing.

2. AI assistance, human verification

  • AI tools (large language models) help us with first drafts, structuring, research synthesis and grammar. AI does not publish unsupervised.
  • Every article passes through a human editor before publish. Every numeric claim, name, step, and source is checked against primary references.
  • Hero images are AI-generated (Google Imagen 4 Fast) for editorial illustration and clearly captioned as such on every article.
  • We do not use automated mass publishing tools (e.g. wp_automatic, page-generator-pro). The site is a static build under git review.

3. Headlines and intros

  • Headlines describe the article. We do not use curiosity-gap or click-tease formulations ("you won't believe…", "the shocking truth about…"). If a headline asks a question, the first paragraph answers it directly with the specific entity, price, name, or step.
  • We run an automated headline ↔ first-paragraph alignment audit on the full site and revise mismatches.

4. Updates and freshness

  • publishedDate reflects the original publication. updatedDate only moves when there is a material change to the article (new figures, corrected facts, added sources, structural rewrite). Cosmetic edits, typo fixes, or SEO tweaks do not update the date.
  • This is a deliberate guard against fake-update SEO churn, which Google specifically discourages.

5. Corrections

  • Email [email protected] to flag a factual error.
  • Material errors are corrected within 48 hours. A "Corrected on [date]" line is added to the article. We do not silently revise articles after publication to hide errors.
  • If we receive multiple credible flags on the same article, it goes into a manual review queue before any further update is published.

6. What we don't publish

  • Paid product placement or sponsored content disguised as editorial.
  • Scraped, spun, or copy-pasted content from third-party sites.
  • Content unrelated to our four focus areas (UK consumer prices, telco how-to, advert cast/music, UK welfare benefits).
  • Legal, medical or financial advice on regulated matters. For those, see a qualified professional.
  • Defamatory claims, unverified rumour, or speculative attribution.

7. Identifying real people

  • When we identify the cast or musicians of an advert, we cite at least one verifiable source (the brand's YouTube channel, a talent agency listing, a published interview).
  • If a public figure asks us to remove their name or correct an attribution, we comply immediately. Email [email protected].

8. Commercial conflicts

  • This site does not currently run advertising, sponsorships, paid placements, or affiliate programmes. Editorial selection is driven only by the topical interests of our readership.
  • If we introduce affiliate links or display advertising in the future, every commercial relationship will be disclosed in-article and on a dedicated disclosure page.

9. Privacy and data

We comply with UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). Google Analytics 4 is configured with Consent Mode v2 (default denied). No analytics cookies are set until you explicitly accept. Full details in our privacy policy and cookie policy.

10. Security disclosure

We publish a security.txt file under RFC 9116 inviting responsible disclosure of security issues. Email [email protected] with details and we aim to acknowledge within 72 hours.

11. Search engine policies

We comply with the Google Search Essentials and the Bing Webmaster Guidelines. Our robots.txt explicitly allows the major search and AI crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Perplexity, Common Crawl) and blocks SEO competitor scrapers that consume bandwidth without contributing.

Last updated

13 May 2026.