Editorial policy

01 Who writes this

The people who do the work write about the work. Articles are written by the Synapse team, edited and signed off by Ben, who runs the company. Who we are is on the about page.

Every post carries an author and a date. If a post was written by someone outside the company, it says so at the top, in the byline, not in small print at the bottom.

02 How a claim gets on the page

• A claim about how a search engine or an AI engine works needs a primary source: the engine's own documentation, its own people saying it, a patent, a specification, or a study we can read. Another agency's blog post is not a source.
• We link the source in the text, so you can check it without asking us. If the source is behind a login or a paywall, we say so.
• Time-sensitive claims carry the date the source said it. Search documentation changes, and a 2023 fact with no date on it is a trap.
• A number from our own work has to be a number we can show. If it cannot be shown without naming a client we cannot name, it stays out.
• When two sources disagree, we say so and pick one, with the reason.

One example of what this looks like. llms.txt is published on this site, and we label it a bet. No answer engine documents using it, and Google's John Mueller said in June 2025 that no AI system currently does. Publishing it costs nothing. Claiming it ranks you would be a lie.

03 Saying how sure we are

Not every true thing is true in the same way. We mark which kind of claim we are making.

• Documented. The engine says it, in writing, and we link to where.
• Measured. We ran it and here is the result, with the method and the date.
• Correlational. A study found a relationship. It is not a cause, and we say that in the same sentence.
• A bet. Reasoning from how these systems work, cheap to act on, not evidence. Labelled as such.

Most search advice on the internet is the fourth kind sold as the first. That is the gap this policy exists to close.

04 What we will not publish

• An invented statistic, a rounded-up result, or a percentage with no method behind it.
• A client's name, logo or data without their written agreement. Case studies here are anonymised by default.
• A result we cannot evidence if someone asks us to.
• A guarantee of a ranking, a citation or a traffic number, because nobody can give one.
• Text whose only purpose is to hold a keyword. If a page has nothing to say, it does not get published.

05 Corrections

Tell us something is wrong and we check it against the source. If you are right, this is what happens:

1. The text is fixed in place, so the wrong version stops being read.
2. A dated correction line goes at the bottom of the page saying what was wrong and what it says now. It stays there.
3. The update date on the post changes.
4. If the error changed the advice, it goes at the top instead, where you cannot miss it.

We do not delete a post to make a mistake disappear. If something is so wrong that it should not be read at all, it gets a note saying why and what replaced it.

Typos and broken links are fixed without a note. Anything that changes the meaning gets one.

06 Dates and updates

The published date is when it went up. The updated date is when the text actually changed. We do not touch dates to look fresh. A post that has not needed a change keeps its original date, and that tells you something a bumped date would hide.

Posts brought over from the older version of this site keep their original URL and their original date. Where one has been rewritten, the update date says so.

07 Where we have an interest

We sell search, growth and software work. Everything here is written by a company that profits if you believe it, and you should read it that way.

So: when we name a tool we say whether we use it or built it. Our own products are marked as ours. Advice that would sell you something you do not need is the fastest way to lose the rest of this page's credibility, which is the practical reason the rules above are written down.

Two house rules. First, this site carries no sponsored posts, no paid placements and no affiliate links. Nobody pays us to mention a product or to link to it.

Second, a post may be drafted with AI assistance. Ben reviews and edits every post before it is published, and nothing goes up without that step.

08 Tell us we are wrong

Send the page, the sentence and the source throughthe contact page. A link to the primary source gets it fixed fastest. We would rather be corrected in public than quoted wrongly for a year.