Editorial and Review Policy

How AltFTool's tools, guides, ratings and data are made and checked, and what we do when something is wrong.

Effective date:

Editorial standards

What we check, and what we don't.

AltFTool is a free online tools website. This page describes how its content is actually produced and checked, including the limits of those checks, so you can decide how much to rely on it.

Automated checks

Build guards run before every production build and before developers push; unit tests run during development.

AI is disclosed

AI agents help build tools and write page text. We say so here rather than hide it.

Sources and dates

Ratings and datasets name their sources and dates. Blog posts are general articles.

1. What this policy covers

This page explains how AltFTool's tools, guides, ratings, directories and datasets are made and checked, how we use AI, how the site is paid for, and how to get a mistake corrected. It applies to the whole site.

AltFTool News has its own, stricter policy for news stories, linked below.

2. How tools are built and checked

Many AltFTool tools, and much of the explanatory text on tool pages, are written with the help of AI coding agents. The unit and time zone converter pages are produced from templates by a generator script.

Automated build guards run before every production build, and on developers' machines before a push. They catch broken imports, missing files, unsafe styles, broken tool entry points and similar faults. A larger unit test suite runs during development. One batch of 69 calculators has also had a recorded audit by a separate AI agent, which re-derived each formula and ran it on typical, threshold and edge-case inputs; other calculators have not had that audit.

These checks catch many errors but not all of them. We do not claim that every tool has been tested by hand. If a tool gives a wrong result, please tell us (see Corrections).

  • Which tools contact another server is worked out from each tool's code when the site is built. Where a tool page states its network behaviour, that statement is the one to rely on.
  • Tools are educational and productivity helpers. They are not a substitute for professional legal, medical, financial or security advice.

3. Ratings, directories and datasets

Ratings and directories each publish their own method, so you can see what was checked and what was not:

  • Brand rating methodology: criteria, weights, evidence and last-checked dates. We do not lab-test products or publish user reviews.
  • Consumer rating methodology: buying-guide criteria built from regulators, standards bodies and recall databases.
  • Backlinks directory methodology: what "path checked" means, why domain authority is an estimate, and why link type is an estimate per domain.
  • Open data: the exam photo specification and converter datasets and how to cite them.

Dated reference data carries its source and the date it was read: exam photo and signature rules name the notification they were taken from, recharge plans show their source and the date they were verified, the free-course catalogue shows when it was last checked, and website-directory entries record when they were checked.

4. Guides, blogs and health information

  • Blog posts show the author named on the post and the dates it was published and last updated. A "Reviewed by" line appears only when a reviewer is recorded for that post.
  • Blog posts are general articles. Most do not list sources, and they are not checked against official guidance. Treat health, money and legal topics in blog posts as a starting point, not advice.
  • A few curated guides go further. The contraception and intimacy-wellness guides are checked against the guidance of the public health bodies they cite (for example WHO, CDC and NHS) and show the date they were last reviewed. They have not been reviewed by a named clinician, and they are not medical advice.
  • Consumer ratings, recharge plans and exam photo specifications name their sources and show when they were checked. Prices and rules change, so confirm on the provider's or exam body's own page before you rely on them.

5. How we use AI

  • AI tools help write tool code, tool page text and search metadata on this site, and may help draft guides.
  • AltAI is an AI chat assistant. Its answers, like those of any AI model, can be wrong and should be checked.
  • We do not publish AI rewrites of other publishers' articles. News headlines from other outlets are credited and linked to the original.

6. How the site is paid for

AltFTool is free to use. It is paid for by advertising (Google AdSense) and by affiliate links, which can earn a commission when you buy through them at no extra cost to you.

Paid, partner and affiliate links on offer, exclusive-deal and brand-rating pages are marked rel="sponsored". Advertisers and affiliate partners do not choose or approve what tools, guides or ratings say.

7. Corrections

  • If something on AltFTool is wrong (a tool result, a figure, a date, a link or a rating), send us the page link and what is wrong through the contact page.
  • When we fix a dated page, we change the date it shows as last updated or last checked.