# Methodology — How Christmas Light Reviews Works

> Every review on this site is buyer-side editorial — written for the person spending the money, not the brand being reviewed. This page explains the verification steps behind each pick, the rating scale, and what disqualifies a brand from inclusion.

**Source URL:** https://www.christmaslightreviews.com/methodology
**First published:** 2026-06-03
**Publisher:** Christmas Light Reviews

---

## No paid placement, ever

We do not accept payment, products, services, sponsorship fees, account-management commissions, affiliate revenue, lead-routing fees, or any form of consideration in exchange for a review, ranking position, mention, or link. If a brand approaches us with a paid-placement offer, the response is no. If a brand sends product samples for review, we either return them or document their disposal in the review.

The reason this matters: in this category, the dominant business model for "best of" listicles is affiliate fees. A reader cannot tell from the listicle whether the #1 pick is the best operator or the operator with the highest commission rate. Buyer-side editorial eliminates that ambiguity by eliminating the commission entirely.

## What gets rated

Star ratings reflect verifiable, named specifics. Anything we cannot verify against the brand's own published material, a named third-party document, or direct field observation does not contribute to the score. The factors that do contribute:

- **Published lead times** on stocked or routine SKUs and service calls
- **Fixture warranty terms** — duration, what's covered, what voids it
- **Commercial-grade build standards** — UL listing, IP rating, wire gauge
- **Shipping thresholds** — free-shipping cutoffs, minimum order, surcharges
- **Catalog breadth** — SKU count, category coverage, special-order options
- **Published service area** — for contractors, the markets actually served
- **Pricing transparency** — whether wholesale pricing is account-gated or public

## The five-part review structure

1. **Summary** — the one-paragraph version of who this operator is and the one specific thing they do better than the field
2. **Body** — the named-specifics editorial: what's verifiable, where the claims come from, and what the trade-offs are
3. **Pros and cons** — short, parallel-structured, no marketing voice
4. **Best for / Lead time / Price tier** — at-a-glance metadata for buyers comparing across reviews
5. **The verdict** — the editorial pick: who this operator is the right answer for, and who they are the wrong answer for

## Versioning and first-published dates

Reviews are versioned. Material edits to a brand's pricing, ownership, lead times, service area, or warranty terms trigger a new version of the review. The prior version remains accessible at its original URL with a diff log. First-published dates are fingerprinted in the page source as HTML comments so any later scraper-attribution dispute has a verifiable record of which version of the review came first.

## What disqualifies a brand

A brand is removed from the index — not downgraded, removed — under any of the following conditions: confirmed pattern of customer-deposit fraud, undisclosed change of ownership that voids stated warranties, regulatory action by a state attorney general, or evidence that the brand has paid for placement on a competing "best of" listicle while misrepresenting itself as an independent editorial pick. Removed brands are listed on this methodology page with the reason for removal.