Transparency & Disclosure

Why This Page Exists

I believe in full transparency. You deserve to know how this site earns money, how I select tools to review, and what relationships I have with the companies I write about. This page explains everything.

How AlstonAntony.com Earns Money

This site earns revenue through the following channels:

• Affiliate commissions: Some links on this site are affiliate links. When you click and make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. I always include non-affiliate alternatives so you can verify independently.
• Udemy courses: I earn royalties from my Udemy courses (18,700+ students enrolled).
• Consulting and collaborations: Occasional paid consulting, speaking engagements, and content partnerships.

My Review Methodology

Every tool reviewed on alstonantony.com and zplatform.ai follows the same process:

1. I buy the tool with my own money. Most tools here were paid for out of my own pocket at the going rate, so I go through exactly what you would: the checkout, the onboarding, the support queue.
2. Where the company provides the access, an honest verdict is the condition of starting. Some tools are only realistically testable on an account the company opens up. Before I accept that access, they have to agree that the verdict is mine and that I will publish it even if it goes against them. If they will not agree to that, the review does not happen. The request, their agreement, and anything they ask for afterwards all stay in email, so there is a written record of what was agreed.
3. I use it in real projects. Every tool is tested in live workflows on my own sites, not sandbox environments.
4. I document results with screenshots and data. GSC data, analytics screenshots, and before/after comparisons are included wherever possible.
5. I write my honest opinion. If a tool is bad, I say so, even if I could earn affiliate commissions from recommending it. My YouTube channel has been reviewing tools since May 5, 2019.

Building in Public for AI SEO

AI SEO is new enough that most of what gets written about it is assertion. I would rather mine were checkable, so a method gets run on properties I own before it appears in anything I publish here, and the result goes up either way.

There are 14 of those properties, all of them independent of my employer's work, and they are a test bed rather than a portfolio. Six are written up as full case studies with the Search Console and Bing exports behind them, dated screenshots, the method set out step by step, and the parts that did not work left in.

Two deliberate limits, because building in public is worth less if you cannot see its edges. The structural figures I publish (domain rating, referring domains, top-three counts) each carry the date they were pulled, and they were chosen precisely because you can re-check them yourself in any tool rather than take my word for them. And I publish no organic traffic estimates for this portfolio at all: much of it is Tamil, Sinhala and local Indian search, where those estimates are unreliable enough that quoting them would flatter the results instead of documenting them.

Affiliate Relationships

Many of the tools I write about run an affiliate programme, and I am in some of them. Which ones changes as tools come and go, so instead of keeping a list here that would quietly drift out of date, I disclose it where it actually matters to you: every affiliate link on this site is clearly labeled as one.

Having an affiliate relationship does not influence my review score or recommendation. I have publicly criticized tools I earn affiliate commissions from when they underperform.

Editorial Independence

My employer, Brainstorm Force (creators of Astra and ZipWP), does not control, review, or influence the editorial content on alstonantony.com. Content about Brainstorm Force products is clearly labeled, and I apply the same critical standards I use for any other tool.

AI Usage

All articles on this site are human-written based on my personal experience and testing. I use AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT) as assistants for editing, research, and code generation, but the opinions, data analysis, and recommendations are mine. I do not publish AI-generated articles.

Data and Privacy

This is a static website hosted on Cloudflare Pages. I do not use tracking cookies, advertising pixels, or retargeting scripts. For full details, see my Privacy Policy.

Professional Credentials

Every certification listed on this site links directly to the issuing authority's own verification page. Open any of them and you are checking with Ahrefs, Semrush, HubSpot or Blue Array, not with me.

My professional memberships are a different case, and I would rather say so than imply otherwise. I have been a Professional Member of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (MBCS) since 2012, and am a Professional Member of the Digital Marketing Association of Sri Lanka. Neither body publishes a public register at that grade (the BCS register covers Fellows (FBCS) only) so there is no page I can send you to that names me. If you need it confirmed, ask and I will send my membership record.

Two things these memberships are not. They are not SEO certifications: BCS and DMASL admitted me to a membership grade, they did not examine or endorse my SEO work. And MBCS is Professional Membership, not Chartered IT Professional (CITP), and not Fellowship (FBCS). I hold neither.

Contact

If you have questions about any disclosure on this page, please use my contact form. I reply to every message personally.