How Money Guide researches, writes and reviews guides
Where a link is marked * or labelled Ad, it is a partner advertisement: we receive commission at no extra cost to you. Links without a * or Ad label earn us nothing. How we make money.
In short: A named editor writes every guide from primary UK sources — HMRC, FCA, Ofgem, DWP, Bank of England — not from competitor round-ups. A second pass checks figures before publication. We re-check after fiscal events and at least every two months, and we never invent a number we cannot source today.
Skip this if: Skip this page if you want a product recommendation or personalised advice. It explains our process, not which ISA or tariff you should buy.
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What is a Money Guide page for?
Each guide should answer a decision a UK reader is actually making: whether to switch, claim, wait, or walk away. Listings without a verdict are not enough. Where we cannot reach a verdict from published rules, we say so and point to the official calculator or helpline that can.
Pages are information only. We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and we do not arrange regulated products. When a free official route exists — MoneyHelper, Citizens Advice, a gov.uk form — we name it even if that means you never click a partner link.
How do you research a guide?
Research starts with the operator's own page: legislation, the regulator handbook, or the government manual. Secondary commentary (IFS, ONS, trade bodies) is labelled as analysis, not as the rule. If two official sources disagree, we quote both and date the check.
We do not scrape forums and rewrite them in our voice. User anecdotes can illustrate a process only when the underlying rule is independently sourced. An unsourced statistic is a defect, not a draft.
Before a new slug is written we check the existing registry — pillar guides, sub-guides, answers, how-tos, comparisons — so we improve a thin page in place rather than publish a second URL for the same query.
Who signs off the page?
Kaiser Khan is the named editorial lead and is accountable for personal-finance copy site-wide. Sight-loss pages that make clinical statements are separately reviewed by Mr Mohamed Mohyudin, a GMC-registered consultant ophthalmic surgeon; benefits and tax lines on those pages remain editorial's responsibility.
A second editor checks figures, links and the 'not advice' boundary before publication. Software may be used to summarise a primary PDF or test reading age; it does not publish the final page.
When do you update a guide?
We re-check after a Budget, Spring Statement, MPC decision, Ofgem cap reset, or a mid-year HMRC or DWP change, and on a two-month cadence otherwise. The visible 'Last reviewed' date and the sitemap lastmod come from the same field in the content file — we do not bump a date unless the copy changed.
Cosmetic refreshes, year-stamped headlines without a rule change, and 'what's new in 2026' paragraphs that do not alter the advice are refused. A lastmod that lies teaches crawlers to ignore the field.
What will you not publish?
We will not fabricate rates, eligibility, waiting times or 'average savings'. We will not mark supplier scores as schema.org Review or aggregateRating. We will not introduce customers to lenders, investments or pensions for commission while we are not FCA-authorised.
If a number cannot be sourced on the day of writing, the page ships without it. 'We do not know' is publishable; a guessed figure is not.
Common questions
Is Money Guide financial advice?
No. Guides are general information for UK residents. For a recommendation tailored to you, use MoneyHelper, Citizens Advice, or an FCA-regulated adviser — and check the FCA register before you pay anyone.
Can a provider pay to be in a guide?
No. Payment cannot buy a ranking, a mention in editorial, or a suppressed caveat. Partner advertisements appear only where a live programme exists and are labelled Ad and * — see how we select offers.
How do I challenge a guide?
Email [email protected] with the URL and a primary-source link. Factual errors are corrected on the page and logged at /corrections/. Process complaints are handled on /complaints/.