In the interest of transparency and keeping you up to date about the goings-on at Ars, this brief article will detail how series like the Ars Dealmaster works and what we think you should know about it and other, similar plans we have for the future.

Longtime readers are likely familiar with the "Dealmaster," an ongoing deals series now in its sixth year. We sift through hundreds of deals and try to present those which we think the Ars audience is most interested in. The available deals are shared with us from shopping site partners provided via our business team. Our writing staff is not dealing directly with OEMs of any sort—they're simply focused on what's most promising. When you buy something from a Dealmaster story, Ars gets some amount of affiliate fee from the transaction.

After six years, the success of the Dealmaster astounds us: year after year of growth has shown that readers are really digging it. As a result, the Dealmaster will shortly be joined by a second feature: the Guidemaster.

Master of guides

The Guidemaster, as the name suggests, will be a recommendations/buying guide feature that we’ll run on a regular basis. We’ll pick an area—like home NAS solutions—and then acquire and compare some best-in-class devices and try to give you buying guidance. Now, this is obviously nothing new at Ars. We've been doing product round-ups, buying guides, and recommendations since 1998. But we are expanding it, and we think this is a good time to reiterate the facts about these programs and affiliate revenue:

All of our guides, from Dealmaster to Guidemaster and beyond, are original Ars works by Ars staff.

We pick the topics and the products, we do the reviewing and testing, and we write the guides. No one who isn’t a full-time Ars staffer touches these. That means no product placement (or even suggestion) by advertisers, no external guides “written” by PR groups, and no special treatment of any brand—same as we’ve done with buying guides since the beginning.

Furthermore, no one at Ars is compensated in any way from the revenue such recommendations generate. No one gets a bonus, no one gets commission, no one gets discounts, no one gets kickbacks—no one gets anything.

Ars will have FTC-compliant disclosure statements as necessary.

Beyond Guidemaster

As every website on Earth attempts to diversify its revenue streams to be less depended on fickle Web advertising, we know we're not the first nor the last to be focusing some attention on recommendations content. You'll also note that we are going to return to the days when you could click on a product we've reviewed and purchase it at an affiliate site. Known in the business as "buy now" buttons, these features of reviews will be powered by our Content Management System so they stay up to date over time.

Most important, and at the risk of repeating ourselves:

No one at Ars receives any compensation in any form from anything you buy via an affiliate link. The site gets the money and we get to use it to defray operating costs.

Nothing will change about Ars reviews, other than that some might have “buy now" buttons in locations that are clearly distinct from editorial. Authors typically won’t be aware if the thing they’re reviewing is eligible for affiliate linking, and there won’t be any reason for them to care one way or another.

The first Guidemaster piece will be launching very soon, and I’m pretty proud of it. If you have questions or concerns, please chime in below in the comments. I’ll be lurking and doing my best to answer, as will our new reviews section editor Samuel Axon.