The short version
In plain language
Hush & Haul is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
In practice: if you click a buy button here and then buy something, Amazon pays us a small percentage. It does not cost you anything extra — the commission comes out of Amazon’s margin rather than your total, and the price is identical whether you arrive through a link here or type the address yourself.
That is the entire business model. There is no sponsored content, no paid placement, no advertising, no mailing list being monetized, and no brand relationships of any kind.
What we do not do with it
Five things this funding model does not buy
The useful version of a disclosure is not “we earn commission”. It is a list of the specific things we will not do because of it.
- It does not decide the order of a list. Where a cheaper product is the better answer for a reader, it goes first. See the checkable examples below.
- It does not put picks on health pages. Two pages here answer questions about ears and cabin pressure, and neither carries product recommendations, because the honest answer to both is that no headphone helps.
- It does not produce invented prices. We show a number only when a verified live feed supplies one. There is no feed connected today, so there are no numbers.
- It does not produce invented product codes. We link by tagged search rather than by a product code we cannot verify, because a wrong code sends you to the wrong item — which would earn us the same commission and be a worse outcome for you.
- It does not produce fabricated reviews or ratings. There are no testimonials on this site, no star ratings, and no aggregate scores from nowhere.
Check the claim
Three things you can verify
“Commission does not affect our rankings” is easy to assert. Here are three consequences of it that you can go and look at.
| Claim | Where to check it |
|---|---|
| The cheapest over-ear we cover wins pages outright | Best budget noise-canceling headphones for flights |
| The most expensive over-ear we cover ranks last | Best over-ear headphones for flights |
| One comparison tells you to buy neither product | AirPods Max vs Bose QuietComfort Ultra |
| A page recommends a cheaper product from the same brand | Bose QuietComfort Ultra vs QuietComfort |
| Two pages carry no picks at all, deliberately | Do noise-canceling headphones help with cabin pressure? |
Mechanics
How the links actually work
The /go redirect
Buy buttons here point at a path on this domain beginning /go/ rather than directly at a retailer. That redirect adds our Amazon tracking tag and sends you on.
Three properties of it worth knowing. It is excluded from search indexing and from the sitemap, so it never appears in results. It stores nothing about you — there is no database behind it and no cookie set by us. And its destination is restricted to the retailer hosts we have declared in the site’s own configuration, so it cannot be used to redirect anyone to an arbitrary address.
Tagged search rather than product codes
Our Amazon links are tagged search links for a specific model name rather than direct product links. That is unusual, and it is deliberate: resolving a product code requires a live retailer data connection, and this site does not have one. A code written from memory instead would frequently be wrong, and a wrong code sends you to the wrong item.
A search link costs you one extra click and always lands on the genuine current listing. The methodology page explains the same policy as it applies to prices.
Link attributes
Every earning outbound link carries rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" in line with Google’s link-spam guidance, and opens in a new tab so you do not lose the article.
Not affiliate links
What earns us nothing
A meaningful proportion of the outbound links on this site are not affiliate links at all, and it is worth being clear which.
- Manufacturer specification pages. Every figure in a specifications table links to the maker’s own page so you can check it. Those earn nothing.
- Third-party measurement sources. Where a verdict rests on somebody else’s measurement, they are credited by name and linked. That earns nothing either, and it is an editorial asset rather than a leak.
- Brand-direct stores. Where a manufacturer sells direct and we mention it, the link is labeled as non-earning on the page, with wording to the effect that we earn nothing there so you should check both.
Other networks
Amazon only, at present
Every earning link on this site currently goes to Amazon. We are not part of any other affiliate network for this category, and we do not build tracking links for programs we have not joined — which is a rule we hold to even where a brand runs a public program we could plausibly apply to.
If that changes, links for the new network will appear with the same disclosure treatment as the Amazon ones, and this page will be updated with a changed date.
Contact
Questions about any of this
Email contact@hushandhaul.com or use the contact page. Hush & Haul is published by Magoo Media Group.
Related reading: how we choose covers the rubric and the no-testing position, and the editorial policy covers corrections and updates.
Questions
Common questions
Does it cost me more to buy through your links?
No. The price you pay is identical whether you arrive at Amazon through a link here or by typing the address yourself. The commission comes out of Amazon’s margin, not your total.
Does commission decide what you recommend?
No, and there are checkable consequences of that on this site: the cheapest over-ear we cover wins several pages outright, the most expensive ranks last in our over-ear roundup, and one comparison concludes the reader should buy neither of the two products it compares.
Why don't you show prices?
Because we render prices only from a verified live retailer data feed, and this site does not currently have one connected. Rather than print a number that was right three weeks ago, every button reads “Check price on Amazon”.
What does the /go link do?
It is a redirect on this domain that adds our Amazon tracking tag and sends you on. It is excluded from search indexing and from the sitemap, it never stores anything about you, and its destination is restricted to the retailers we have declared — so it cannot be used to send anyone anywhere else.
Do you take sponsored posts or paid placement?
No, and no brand has any input into what appears here or in what order. If that ever changed, it would be disclosed prominently on the affected page rather than buried in a policy update.
Are all your links affiliate links?
No. Links to manufacturer specification pages, to third-party measurement sources we cite, and to brand-direct stores are not affiliate links and earn us nothing. Brand-direct links are labeled as non-earning on the page, because you should check both.