Affiliate Disclosure

How Karatology Earns Revenue

Karatology.com is a free educational resource dedicated to gold purity, karat systems, hallmarks, and precious metal testing. To keep our content free and accessible, we participate in affiliate marketing programs. This means that some of the links on our site are affiliate links. When you click on one of these links and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

How Affiliate Links Work

Affiliate links look and function like regular links. When you click an affiliate link on Karatology and complete a purchase on the merchant's website, the merchant pays us a referral commission. This commission comes from the merchant's marketing budget -- not from your pocket. You pay the same price regardless of whether you use our link or navigate to the product directly.

Products and Services We Link To

We only link to products and services that are directly relevant to gold purity education and precious metal ownership. These include:

• Gold testing kits (acid test kits, scratch stone kits)
• Electronic gold testers and XRF analyzers
• Jeweler's tools (loupes, precision scales, calipers)
• Bullion dealers and precious metal retailers
• Educational books and courses on precious metals
• Jewelry-making supplies and findings

Our Editorial Independence

Our affiliate relationships never influence our editorial content, product recommendations, or the accuracy of our educational guides. We follow strict editorial principles:

• We recommend products based on quality, value, and relevance to our readers -- not based on commission rates.
• We will never promote a product we have not researched or that we believe is not a good fit for our audience.
• Our articles, guides, and tool outputs are written and developed independently of any affiliate partnership.
• If a product we link to changes in quality or reputation, we will update or remove that recommendation.
• Affiliate revenue helps us maintain and improve this site, but it does not determine what we write or recommend.

For more details about how we produce and review content, please see our Editorial Policy.

How to Identify Affiliate Links

Transparency is important to us. On pages that contain affiliate links, we display a clear disclosure notice before the first affiliate link appears. This notice informs you that the page contains affiliate links and that we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases. You will typically see a short statement such as: "This page contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you."

FTC Compliance

This disclosure is provided in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) to ensure full transparency about the financial relationships between Karatology and the merchants whose products we reference. We are committed to honest, clear communication about how we earn revenue and how affiliate relationships work on this site.

Questions About Our Affiliate Relationships

If you have any questions about our affiliate partnerships, how we select products to recommend, or anything related to this disclosure, please contact us at contact@karatology.com. We are happy to provide additional details.

You can also review our Privacy Policy to learn how we handle your data when you visit our site.