How We Review Products at AutoGuide

AutoGuide has full-time, dedicated professional editors, writers, and analysts with years of experience not just writing about cars, but as mechanics, testers, and reviewers. You can read more about us on our Editorial Staff page. Our first stop is our own expertise, and we’re continually adding new hands-on tests and reviews to our recommendations; or removing products when they don’t meet our standards. If we need to, we’ll consult with experts in a specific field, or from one of our sister sites, to make sure we’re giving you the best advice that we can.

In order for any product to make it into one of our recommendations, it must have at least 100 reviews, and at least 80% of them must be positive. Sometimes a specific application won’t have sufficient reviews (like a size or particular color), in which case we use a metric to combine and average ratings across otherwise identical items. We’ll tell you the exact percent in our article. We also review and test bestsellers or other standouts in their category, even if they might not meet our rating criteria, to find out why people like them so much.

If we see something suspicious, AutoGuide checks product with publicly accessible review quality tools to try to weed out fraudulent behavior. When we find deceptive practices, such as incentivized reviews (exchanging products and/or money for reviews), we remove that brand from all of our recommendations, and indicate why.

We update our recommendations as frequently as possible—jump down to the bottom of any Buyer’s Guide and you’ll see a list of any changes we’ve made. More established and reputable companies, those with accessible North American-based customer service, and those offering good warranties will receive higher ranking from us.

In addition to quality and functionality, we give a higher ranking to products from companies with warranties that are better than average for their category; have instructions or documentation on their website; and with North American toll-free customer service and technical support numbers. A high-quality product with complaints about customer service will be moved down the list.

AutoGuide has our own testing capabilities and whenever possible, we purchase products and test them in-house. Using and comparing them to our ever-growing library of similar items helps us figure out what makes one product better than another, as well as which brands tend to do best.

But we can’t test everything, so we do extensive research into those that go into every Buyer’s Guide. We start with a long list, and only pick those we think are worth your time and money. Sometimes we find identical products with different branding. When we do, we’ll give you their different names so you can find the best deal.

We are updating all of our existing product articles with more test results, photography, new recommendations, and how-tos, as well as adding more details about warranties, technical support, documentation, and customer service. We often call companies to check on any or all of these.

We want to make sure you’re getting the best products available, but we know you don’t have time to scour the internet. Our goal is to help you narrow down your search and make smart buying choices.

If a company pays for an article on AutoGuide, you’ll see a “Sponsored Post” badge on the first image. We do accept products to test and review. If we do, we let a company know that if it sends us something, the product will not receive any special treatment, and we tell you in the article that we received it for free.

We earn a small percentage of the money a company makes when you complete a purchase via our links. This comes from the seller, not the buyer, so there’s no change in your price. Our affiliate revenue helps to pay for our team of experts and helps us to share our expert advice with you, and to continue to tell the stories we love. For details about affiliate commissions, see the next section.

AutoGuide.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and other similar affiliate advertising programs with companies like eBay, which allow us to earn fees by linking to products for sale on their websites. When you click on a link for a product on AutoGuide.com, it contains a small code that identifies links from our website and lets the affiliate partner or retailer know to send us a referral fee. This does not mean we are bound to Amazon or any other retailer or affiliate partner, nor does it lead us to favor some products or companies over others. We earn the same affiliate commission on the first item on the list as we do on the last, so our top priority can be picking the best products. The price you pay doesn’t change, and you’re still eligible for any discounts or coupons you might find.

Our product reviews are prepared independently by our editors and contributors, without direction from our affiliate partners or retailers. Our editorial team is not responsible for monetizing the content and does not work directly with any advertisers.

Last update: March 4, 2022