Editorial policy

This page describes how we decide what to publish, how we check it, and what we will not do. It is a commitment, and you should hold us to it.

The test every page has to pass

We do not publish a page that a general-purpose AI assistant could answer better in ten seconds. If a page has nothing but a rephrasing of common knowledge, it does not need better writing. It needs a reason to exist.

Every page must carry at least one thing that cannot be produced on demand: a table built from primary sources, a checklist derived from a real process, a calculation with its assumptions written out, a decision framework, or a dated verification against an official government page.

How we research

For anything legal, immigration, tax or financial, we use primary sources only. Government departments, official gazettes, consulates, central banks, regulators. A newspaper reporting a rule change is a lead, not a source; we go and find the rule.

We never cite a relocation blog, a forum or a cost-of-living aggregator for a legal fact. Aggregators may inform cost estimates, and when they do we label the figure as an estimate and give the date it was collected.

How we verify

Every sensitive claim points at a record in our source register, holding the official URL, the responsible body, the jurisdiction, the date consulted, the date last verified, the specific claim it supports, its editorial status and its reviewer. One claim per source record, so that when a government page changes we know exactly which claims on which guides are now in doubt.

Our content moves through six states: Draft, Needs Source, Needs Verification, Verified, Needs Update and Archived. Only Verified content can be published, and only Verified content is offered to search engines. This is enforced in code. A page that fails is pushed back to draft and the reason is shown to the editor.

What happens when the law changes

When we learn that a rule has changed, the affected guides move to Needs Update immediately, which removes them from the search index until they are re-checked. We publish an entry on our updates page in the same week, naming what changed.

We re-verify immigration routes, income thresholds and fees every three months regardless of whether we have heard of a change. Cost estimates and practical guides every six months.

Use of AI

We use AI tools for structure, drafting, summarising and editing. This is worth stating plainly rather than burying.

AI is never the source of a factual claim on this site, and it is never the last step before publication. Every published page has a named human reviewer and a date on which that person checked it. Where you see a verification date, a person put it there.

What we never do

• Invent a legal requirement, an income threshold, a fee, a processing time or an eligibility rule.
• Invent an author, an expert, a reviewer, a credential, a testimonial or a personal experience.
• Claim an award, a partnership, a user number or a traffic figure.
• Backdate an update, or refresh a date without re-checking the content beneath it.
• Tell you that you qualify for anything.
• Write a clickbait headline, stuff a keyword, or publish the same guide with the country name swapped.

Corrections

Every correction to a published factual claim is recorded publicly, naming what was wrong and when it was fixed. We do not silently edit facts. See our corrections policy.