Advertising Policy
What we will and will not accept money from, and why the list is unusually restrictive for a health site.
Categories we block
These are blocked programmatically and refused for direct sales:
- Supplements and nutraceuticals
- Pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter drugs
- Weight-loss products and programmes
- “Ayurvedic cure” products of any description
- Fertility and sexual-performance products
- Gambling, betting and cryptocurrency
- Adult content
- Anything making a miracle-cure or transformation claim
The supplement block is the one that costs most. Supplement advertising is the natural revenue for a wellness publication and pays well. Taking it would mean running an advertisement for a product beside an article assessing whether that class of product works — which makes the assessment worthless.
Categories we accept
- General consumer goods
- Food brands, where claims are FSSAI-compliant
- Fitness equipment and apparel
- Books and education
- Non-predatory financial services
- Clearly-labelled sponsored editorial meeting our standards
Sponsored content
Sponsored articles pass the same pipeline as editorial: DMR screening, medical review, fact-check. They are labelled “SPONSORED / प्रायोजित” in the eyebrow and given distinct visual treatment. Editorial reserves an absolute right to refuse.
No sponsor may influence an evidence label or a myth-check verdict. No sponsored content may make a health claim. We meet the disclosure obligations in the CCPA’s 2022 guidelines on misleading advertisements and endorsements.
Affiliate links
Narrow and disclosed. Permitted: books, fitness equipment, kitchen tools, non-medicated skincare, air purifiers. Prohibited: any ingestible product, any supplement, anything carrying a health claim. Where affiliate links appear, disclosure sits above the article body, not buried at the end.
What we do not sell at all
- Guest posts, sponsored links, or any placement in a link marketplace
- Favourable coverage, or removal of unfavourable coverage
- Influence over an evidence label or verdict
- Reader data
Labelling
Every ad slot is labelled “ADVERTISEMENT / विज्ञापन”. If you find advertising on this site that is not labelled, or that falls into a blocked category, tell us at [email protected] — programmatic category blocking is imperfect and we audit it quarterly.