Affiliate and Advertising Disclosure

The commercial relationships described on this page are Ajwa Hub’s relationships. No writer, contributor or reviewer holds a separate undisclosed commercial interest in a product covered on this site, and anyone who did would be barred from writing about it.

Ajwa Hub is free to read. There is no paywall, no subscription and no account.

That costs money to produce: research time, writing, hosting, price verification across several markets, and the editorial work of checking a narration against a recognised collection or a nutrition claim against the literature. The site may earn affiliate commission, and may in future carry display advertising.

We think the reader is entitled to know that before reading a buying guide, which is why this page exists and why a disclosure appears at the top of every page where a commercial link sits rather than only here.

An affiliate link is an ordinary link to a seller with a tracking identifier attached. When you click it, the seller’s site or an affiliate network records that the visit came from this site. If you then buy something, the seller pays us a percentage of the sale, or in some programmes a fixed amount.

Four things follow from that mechanism and all four are worth stating directly.

1. You pay the same price.

   The commission comes out of the merchant’s own margin. It is not added to your bill, it is not a surcharge, and you would not pay less by typing the merchant’s address in manually. If a page on this site ever implies you get a special price through our link, that is an error.

2. We are paid on the purchase, not on the praise.

   Commission arrives when a reader buys something. No merchant pays us to describe a product in a particular way, and none pays us for a review, a position or a mention.

3. Attribution runs on a window.

   The merchant’s cookie typically lasts somewhere between a day and a month. Buy inside that window and the sale is attributed to us; buy later, or from a different device, and it is not. We have no visibility into which reader bought what, only into counts.

4. Most links here earn nothing.

   The majority of outbound links on this site are citations: a seller named as evidence of a market price, a research paper, a government nutrition database, a Hadith collection. Those are references, not revenue.

What we actually receive from a network is a report of numbers: clicks from a page, conversions, commission. It does not identify you. What that means for your data is in the privacy policy, and the cookie mechanics are in the cookie policy.

Specifics matter more than a general statement. Affiliate links on Ajwa Hub may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. A programme we leave is removed rather than left in place.

Affiliate networks

Ajwa Hub may work with affiliate networks. A programme that has been applied for but not approved is not listed.

Direct merchant programmes

Ajwa Hub may link directly to merchants.

A programme that has been applied for but not approved does not belong here.

Required programme wording. Some programmes require a specific disclosure sentence, in specified wording, in specified places. Where a programme we belong to imposes that requirement, its exact sentence appears on this page and on the relevant article pages as the programme specifies, in addition to our own plain-language disclosure. We use the mandated wording verbatim rather than paraphrasing it, because a paraphrase can breach the programme terms even when it conveys the same meaning.

If this page lists no programmes, the honest statement is that the site currently earns nothing from affiliate links, and the disclosures elsewhere on the site should be removed until that changes. A disclosure for a relationship that does not exist is as misleading as a missing one.

This is the part of a disclosure page that usually says nothing. Here is the actual method, so you can check our pages against it.

What we select on

• Verifiable origin

  For Ajwa specifically, whether the seller states a region of origin and whether that statement is specific. “Madinah” or “Al Madinah Al Munawwarah” tells a reader something. “Imported premium dates” does not.

• Grade transparency

  Whether the seller names a grade, and whether the grade naming is consistent with how Saudi sellers use those terms. Grade is cosmetic and size-based rather than a different variety, and a seller who conceals grade is usually selling a lower one at a higher price.

• Honest pack weight

  Whether the stated net weight matches what the packaging implies. A 400 g gift box in a format that reads as half a kilogram is a point against a seller, not a neutral packaging choice.

• Price for what is in the pack

  Recalculated per 100 g and compared against the market for that grade in that country. A high price for first class fruit is not an overcharge; a high price for mixed fruit is.

• Whether it reaches the reader

  A seller who does not ship to the country a page is written for is not a recommendation for that page, however good the product.

• Seed-in or pitted, stated clearly

  These are not comparable on a price-per-kilogram basis, and a seller who leaves it ambiguous makes it harder for a reader to compare.

What we do not select on

If the best option for a reader is a seller we earn nothing from, that is what the page says. Several of our buying guides recommend bulk cartons and lower grades because they are better value per kilogram, which is the opposite of commission-maximising advice, and a page recommending a 12 kg carton over a gift box is doing what this section describes.

What happens to a merchant who falls short

A seller whose origin labelling turns out to be vague, whose grade naming does not match the fruit, or whose pricing drifts out of line with the market gets criticised on the page where it appears, whether or not we earn from it. If the problem is serious we remove the link and say why. A partner who objects to accurate criticism stops being a partner, and that has to be true in practice for this page to be worth anything.

We publish prices because a buying guide without numbers is useless, and we are precise about what those numbers are.

Every price on this site is a record of what a specific named seller was asking on a specific date, read from that seller’s own public listing. It is not supplied by a partner, not adjusted, and not an offer. Each price page carries a visible “prices last checked” date.

We do not control merchant pricing. We do not get advance notice of changes, we cannot hold a price, and we have no price-match arrangement with anyone. Date prices move for reasons specific to the product: the Saudi harvest arriving around August and September, demand spikes around Ramadan and Hajj that begin building weeks ahead, currency movement, differing VAT and duty treatment between markets, and grade naming that is not standardised between sellers.

So treat a price here as a benchmark for whether the figure in front of you is reasonable, and check the seller’s current listing before buying. The full method, including how often figures are re-verified, is on the Ajwa dates price guide. The status of price information as dated examples rather than offers is also stated in the disclaimer.

We are not a party to any purchase you make. Your contract is with the seller, and a return, refund, delivery or quality problem is a matter between you and them. We cannot intervene, and a commercial relationship with a merchant does not give us any ability to resolve an order.

A disclosure on a policy page nobody visits is not a disclosure. The requirement under FTC guidance, and the standard we work to, is that it appears where the reader meets the link and before they act on it.

On this site that means:

Where a link is to a research paper, a government database, a Hadith collection or a seller named purely as price evidence, no disclosure is needed because no commission exists. We do not label non-commercial links as commercial, because inflating the disclosure makes the real ones easier to ignore.

Where display advertising runs on the site, it is supplied by an advertising network and is clearly distinguishable from editorial content: separated visually, labelled, and never formatted to resemble the surrounding text.

We do not choose the individual advertisements a network serves you, and the appearance of an advertisement is not an endorsement by us of the advertiser, the product or any claim it makes. An advertisement for a date seller on one of our pages has not been reviewed by us and has no editorial standing.

If display advertising runs, that network may be Google AdSense or another advertising network. Such advertising may use cookies for delivery and measurement, including cookies used by Google and its partners to serve ads based on your prior visits, and personalised advertising can be opted out of through Google Ads Settings and at aboutads.info. Advertising is never placed inside an article in a position designed to be mistaken for editorial content, and we do not use advertising formats that imitate a recommendation, a comparison table or a product pick.

What advertising means for your data, including that no advertising technology loads before consent, is in the privacy policy and the cookie policy.

Our position, stated plainly:

1. Editorial recommendations are not for sale.

   Position in a comparison, inclusion in a buying guide, prominence on a page and the substance of an assessment cannot be bought. There is no rate card for a mention.

2. We do not accept paid guest posts or link insertions.

   Not for payment, not in exchange for a reciprocal link, not from an agency acting for a merchant. On a site covering health and religious subject matter this is not a stylistic preference; an unreviewed guest post is how a cure claim or an unverifiable narration gets onto a page.

3. If sponsored content is ever published, it is labelled before it begins.

   In the heading area, above the content, in body text size, saying who paid for it. Not “in partnership with” in small type at the end. A reader is entitled to know who paid for what they are reading before they read it, which is both the FTC standard and the ASA standard.

4. Sponsored content is never counted as editorial.

   It does not appear in comparison tables, it is not cited by other pages as a source, and it carries no “recommended” or “best” framing.

Sellers sometimes offer product samples to publications covering their category. Where we accept one, the arrangement is disclosed on the page that resulted from it, in the same position and the same type size as an affiliate disclosure, because receiving a product free is a material connection under FTC guidance whether or not money changed hands.

Accepting a sample does not commit us to covering it, to covering it favourably, or to covering it at all. A sample that turns out to be poorly graded, vaguely labelled or overpriced gets written up that way.

The commitment is easy to write and only means something if it is testable. Four things make it testable on this site.

Our full editorial standards, including sourcing, fact-checking and corrections, are on the editorial policy page. The boundaries of what the site claims on health and religious subjects are in the disclaimer.

If you read a page here and think the recommendation was bought, tell us. That is the single most useful piece of feedback we can get, because if the suspicion is reasonable then the page has failed even where the recommendation was honest.

Several regimes govern this, and which bind the site depends on where the operator is established and where readers are. We work to the strictest applicable standard rather than the most convenient one, because the requirements largely converge.

United States. The FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising require that a material connection between an endorser and a seller be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, close to the relevant claim, and in language an ordinary reader will notice and understand. Commission on a link is a material connection. So is a free sample. The FTC’s guidance is explicit that a disclosure buried in a terms page, placed below a link, or written in ambiguous language does not meet the standard.

United Kingdom. The CAP Code requires marketing communications to be obviously identifiable as such. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations prohibit using editorial content to promote a product where the trader has paid for it without making that clear. The ASA has ruled specifically on affiliate marketing and expects affiliate content to be identifiable as advertising where the publisher has editorial control and a commercial interest.

European Union. The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive prohibits presenting paid promotion as independent editorial, and lists it among the practices considered unfair in all circumstances. The Digital Services Act requires advertising on an online platform to be identifiable as advertising.

Programme terms. Separately from the law, affiliate programmes impose their own disclosure requirements, and some mandate exact wording in specified locations. Those obligations are contractual, and breaching them terminates the account regardless of whether the law was satisfied.

In practice these converge on one requirement, which is the one we hold to: disclose clearly, disclose near the link, disclose in language a reader understands, and disclose before the reader acts rather than after.

Email [email protected] to tell us if we get this wrong.

Three things we want to hear about immediately: a page with affiliate links and no visible disclosure, a disclosure that is hard to find or hard to read, and a recommendation that looks bought. Those get checked the same day.

Broken links, programmes we have left but not removed from this page, and out-of-date seller information are logged and fixed in the normal cycle.

This page changes whenever the commercial arrangements do. The triggers are concrete: joining or leaving a programme, advertising going live or being switched off, accepting a first sample or a first sponsorship, or a change in the applicable advertising rules.

How changes are communicated:

• The Last updated date at the top changes on every substantive edit, and the page’s dateModified changes with it.
• A short summary of what changed sits beneath the Last updated line for at least 30 days, naming any programme added or removed.
• A material change, meaning a new revenue stream such as display advertising or sponsored content, or a change in the independence commitments above, gets a notice on the site and an email to newsletter subscribers where a newsletter is running.
• Removing a programme is reflected in the table immediately, because an obsolete entry overstates our commercial entanglement rather than understating it, and both are inaccurate.
• Typographical corrections are made without notice.

Earlier versions are retained, so we can say what relationships existed on a given date. That matters: a reader looking at an archived article is entitled to know what the commercial position was when it was written.