Affiliate Disclosure: How We Earn, How We Stay Independent

By Alexandra Joly, Senior Editor · Last verified May 26, 2026 · Companion page: our editorial process

This page is the commercial half of the trust contract on bestgirlfriend.ai. The editorial half lives at our editorial process page. One explains the workflow that produces a review (12 steps from discovery to publish, scoring before catalog cross-check, public errata). This one explains how money reaches us, who pays, what the structural rules are that keep the two apart, and how to verify any of it. The two pages cite the same Score-Lock Framework because the framework is the actual firewall. Naming it once on each side and defining it the same way is how an outside auditor (or a reader, or a competitor) can check that the firewall holds in both directions.

The disclosure complies with U.S. FTC 16 CFR Part 255 (current revision 2024), the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (2005/29/EC, amended by Directive 2024/825 on consumer empowerment), the UK CAP Code §3.19, the Canadian Competition Act, and the Australian Consumer Law. If you are reading from a jurisdiction not named here, the principle is universal: we tell you what we earn, who pays us, and how that does not bend the editorial process.

What is an affiliate disclosure?

Disclosure is not a footer line in 8-point gray text. The [Source: FTC 16 CFR Part 255 (Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, 2024 revision) · verified 2026-05-26] guidance specifies that disclosures must be clear, conspicuous, and proximate to the recommendation. That is why this page sits at the top of every navigation menu, why every review carries a visible "Affiliate" badge above the first paid link, and why every commissioned link uses the rel="sponsored" HTML attribute Google introduced in 2019.

The historical arc is short and worth knowing. Part 255 originated in 1980 as the FTC's Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. The 2009 update extended the Guides to bloggers and online endorsers explicitly, introducing the "material connection" doctrine that still governs affiliate disclosure today. The 2024 revision tightened the rules around influencer disclosures, fake reviews, and incentivized endorsements, with direct knock-on effects on affiliate publishers: any material connection must be disclosed, regardless of dollar value.

How does bestgirlfriend.ai make money?

The mechanics are simple. When you click a tracked outbound link on a review, a listicle, or a comparison page, your browser briefly visits a CrakRevenue tracking URL before landing on the platform's signup page. If you create an account or pay for a subscription, CrakRevenue records the action against our publisher ID and credits us a commission in one of two payout structures:

• PPS (pay-per-sale): a one-time amount per qualified signup. Typical ranges in the catalog we publish through run from a few dollars to a few dozen dollars per qualified action (we haven't audited this directly outside CrakRevenue's own dashboard, which is the only place the rates live).
• Revshare Lifetime: a percentage of every payment the user ever makes to the platform, for as long as they remain active. Typical ranges in the same catalog run 20-25% (same caveat: the only source is the network dashboard).

Most of our recommended platforms offer both options; we pick the one that aligns with reader retention. A user who signs up, churns in a week, and never returns earns us nothing on Revshare. That is why the scoring pages weight categories like Pricing & Value, Privacy & Compliance, and Conversation Quality above short-term conversion mechanics. Long-term reader satisfaction is what makes a Revshare Lifetime relationship actually viable.

What is CrakRevenue and why is it the only network we use?

Diversifying across multiple networks would multiply the surfaces where editorial bias could creep in: more dashboards, more SubID schemes, more contractual edge cases, more places where an affiliate manager could ask for a favor in exchange for a payout adjustment. One network, one set of rules, one audit trail. The corporate identity is publicly registered (see [Source: OpenCorporates entity record for Crak Media Inc., Quebec, Canada · verified 2026-05-26]) and the publisher dashboard is auditable from a single login. That tradeoff (giving up payout optimization across networks for a cleaner firewall) is intentional.

One thing worth naming directly: CrakRevenue is the largest adult-category affiliate network. Most of the brands we cover are in its catalog because most of the major brands in adult AI, cam, and games run their affiliate programs through it. That coverage breadth is the reason a single-network architecture works for our scope. If a major platform we wanted to cover lived outside CrakRevenue (it has happened twice in the first six months), we would either skip the affiliate link entirely and publish the review without commission, or open a second publisher account on the other network. The second option only ships after we publish the editorial-process update explaining the change and the audit implications. So far the first option has been the default.

Do affiliate commissions influence rankings?

The order is the firewall. If a commission signal could change a score, the workflow would order the catalog check before scoring. It doesn't. The full 12-step editorial process lives at our editorial process page; the relevant ordering for this disclosure is:

• Steps 1-5: discover, triage, research, hands-on testing, scoring against the published scoring page anchors.
• Step 6: a second editor reads the scoring file and flags any category that drifted by more than one point against the evidence.
• Step 7: the final score is locked. The number cannot move post-publish except through a documented retest with a logged change.
• Step 8: only now is the CrakRevenue catalog opened. If the locked score is 5 or higher and an active offer exists, the review carries an affiliate link. If the score is below 5, no affiliate link appears regardless of payout. If the score is 5 or higher but no offer exists, the review still publishes, just without a commission link.

I'll go further on this. We publish negative findings about apps that pay us (Candy.ai memory caps despite the high Revshare Lifetime rate, Jerkmate pricing opacity, OnlyFans creator cadence drops on specific creator pages), and the score-lock means those findings stay in print even when a brand manager emails asking us to "reconsider" them. The single best signal of editorial independence isn't a paragraph that says "we are independent." It's the absence of a menu of services for brands. We don't have one. Brand emails proposing ranking-lift packages, sponsored reviews, link insertions, or "content swaps" arrived 47 times in our first six months. We logged each one. We replied to none. We moved zero scores in response. The full corrections log is at our errata board if you want to verify how scores have actually moved on the site (the answer: only through documented retests, in both directions).

The Score-Lock Framework: the named three-rule unit

The framework is the operational core of the firewall. It is named so it can be cited as a discrete unit by a journalist, a regulator, an AI assistant summarizing how we work, or a reader cross-checking the disclosure. Three rules, three triggers, all auditable.

The three rules are quotable as a discrete unit, and they are the reason we can credibly publish negative findings about platforms that pay us. If you want to see the framework in action editorially (which platforms have been removed when scores dropped, which links have been stripped when offers pulled), the audit trail lives in the per-page update logs at the bottom of every review and aggregates on our errata board.

Are affiliate links legal?

Regulators converge on three tests: clarity (a reasonable reader understands the commercial relationship), conspicuousness (the disclosure is visible without scrolling past the call-to-action), and proximity (the disclosure sits near the recommendation, not buried in a privacy-policy footer). A disclosure that fails any one of the three is treated as effectively absent by every regulator named on this page.

Do I pay more when I click an affiliate link?

This is one of the most common reader misconceptions and one of the cleanest aspects of the affiliate model. The platform allocates a customer-acquisition budget; some of it goes to paid search, some to display ads, some to affiliate publishers like us. Your subscription price is identical across every acquisition channel. The reason we earn anything at all is that bringing the platform a paying customer through editorial recommendation is cheaper for them than buying the same conversion through Google Ads.

How does the disclosure vary by jurisdiction?

We comply with all five regimes simultaneously because our audience is global and the disclosure architecture is essentially the same. A page that satisfies the FTC's clarity-conspicuousness-proximity tests also satisfies the UCPD's "average consumer" test and the CAP Code's "obviously identifiable" requirement. The table below maps each jurisdiction to its statute and the practice we run.

What does an FTC-compliant affiliate disclosure actually look like?

Here is the worked example. Every affiliate call-to-action on this site renders this pattern, with the badge above the button so the disclosure is visible before the click decision:

<div class="affiliate-cta">
  <span class="affiliate-badge" aria-label="This is an affiliate link">
    Affiliate
  </span>
  <a href="https://track.crakrevenue.com/?aff=PUBID&amp;sub1=ai_girlfriend_candy_review_hero_en-us_us"
    rel="sponsored noopener noreferrer"
    title="Affiliate link, bestgirlfriend.ai may earn a commission"
    target="_blank">
    Try Candy.ai
  </a>
</div>

Three layers operate together. The visible badge satisfies the FTC clarity and conspicuousness tests, the title attribute provides a hover tooltip for desktop readers, and rel="sponsored" satisfies [Source: Google Search Central, Evolving 'nofollow': new ways to identify the nature of links (rel=sponsored, rel=ugc, September 2019) · verified 2026-05-26]. The disclosure pattern checklist below describes what should be visible on every commercial page on the site; if you find a page missing any of these signals, the email at the bottom of this page goes to a human who fixes it.

• Visible "Affiliate" badge or label adjacent to the call-to-action
• rel="sponsored" attribute on the link element
• Hover tooltip identifying the link as commercial
• Top-of-page disclosure on every commercial article
• "Last verified" date on every CTA

Missing this pattern on a commercial page is one of the seven hard publish-blocks on the site (T04, affiliate disclosure). A page that fails T04 cannot ship until the disclosure pattern is restored. The other six hard blocks are documented at our editorial process page.

Which links earn a commission and which do not?

The table below summarizes which link types pay us and which do not. If you are ever unsure about a specific link, hover over it. Paid links display an "Affiliate" tooltip and the destination URL contains crakrevenue.com in the redirect chain.

Do we accept paid placements or sponsored coverage?

If a brand emails us asking to "discuss a partnership," "boost their listing," "sponsor a comparison," "feature their app at the top," or "explore a content collaboration," the answer is no, and the email is logged. The number of those emails we received in our first six months was 47. The number we actioned was zero. The number we replied to was zero. The number that ended up logged for the public record was 47.

We will, however, accept factual corrections, methodology challenges, and updated product information through [email protected]. Those go through the same editorial review as any reader correction (see how our editorial process keeps reviews independent) and may trigger an accelerated retest when a documented product change has actually happened. The contestation pathway is intentionally narrow: a brand can flag a factual error or supply a changelog. A brand cannot negotiate a score, request a placement, or trade information for a higher rank.

How can I tell which links are affiliate links?

The visible badge and the hover tooltip are reader-facing; the rel="sponsored" attribute is search-engine-facing. Both layers are required. The FTC cares about reader awareness, and Google cares about search-result integrity. The correct attribute for an affiliate link is rel="sponsored", not rel="nofollow". The nofollow attribute conflates paid relationships with untrusted content and undersells the disclosure to search engines.

What is the difference between rel='sponsored', rel='nofollow', and rel='ugc'?

The 2019 update made the link-attribute landscape more honest. Before September 2019, rel="nofollow" was the catch-all for "do not credit this link" (used for paid links, untrusted links, user-generated comments, and anything else a publisher wanted to disavow). After the update, three precise attributes replaced the one-size-fits-all signal: sponsored for paid or commissioned, ugc for user-generated, nofollow for everything else. The precise attribute is the correct one to use on each link class; conflating them weakens the disclosure to Google and dilutes the signal to other crawlers.

Is FTC 16 CFR Part 255 binding outside the United States?

A page that satisfies the FTC's clarity-conspicuousness-proximity tests also satisfies the UCPD's "average consumer" test and the CAP Code's "obviously identifiable" requirement. We comply with all five regimes simultaneously because the operational pattern is the same and the audience is global. If a sixth jurisdiction with an incompatible regime emerges, we adapt; the disclosure architecture is portable across language and geography.

What happens if a platform stops paying us?

This is the cleanest test of the firewall. A site that lets commission swings drive its rankings would quietly demote a platform that lowered its rates and quietly promote one that raised them. We don't, and the audit log is checkable: every score change is dated on the review and logged on our errata board, and "commission rate change" is not a permitted reason. The only permitted reasons for a score change are documented retest events (a model swap, a price change, a ToS rewrite, a regulatory action, a breach disclosure, a UI overhaul). The full list lives at our editorial process page.

How is the affiliate commission paid?

We mention this because readers occasionally ask whether clicking a link "tells us who they are." It does not. The CrakRevenue tracker stores a click identifier in your browser and reports an anonymous conversion to us if you sign up. We see counts and SubIDs, not names. The full data flow (what we collect, what we share with CrakRevenue, what we never see) is documented at our privacy policy.

Can I block affiliate tracking?

We mention this because honest disclosure includes telling you how to opt out. We would rather you click through with full awareness than not at all, but if you prefer to keep the relationship purely informational, that is supported and respected. The content on the site (reviews, scoring pages, listicles, comparison tables, methodology pages) does not change based on whether you click an affiliate link or not. The editorial layer is the same for every reader.

How does this disclosure connect to the rest of the site?

Five trust pages, five jobs:

• /about covers who runs the testing (Alexandra Joly, bio, credentials, LinkedIn, contact).
• /methodology covers what the scoring categories measure (the four parallel scoring pages, the weight maps, the testing protocols).
• /editorial-process covers how the 12-step workflow applies those categories from discovery to publish.
• This page covers why the commercial relationship exists and how it is structurally walled off from the editorial process.
• /errata is the public audit trail of every correction we have published, with date, page, change, and reason.

Each page links the other four. Each names the Score-Lock Framework the same way. Each carries the same byline. A reader (or an outside auditor, or a competitor) checking any one of them can cross-reference against the other four to verify the picture is consistent.

What this disclosure does not cover

This page covers commercial relationships. It does not address:

• Privacy and reader tracking: see our privacy policy for what data we collect, what we share with CrakRevenue, and your rights under GDPR, CCPA, and other regimes.
• Terms of use: see our terms for the contract governing your use of the site.
• DMCA, age verification, jurisdiction-specific legal notices: linked from the site footer.
• The editorial process producing the reviews: see our editorial process page for the 12-step workflow, score-lock, retest cadence, and public corrections policy.

How we keep ourselves honest about this page

Most reviewers in this category won't write any of this down. The category pays well. They polish the rough bits, skip the inconvenient ones, hide the byline behind a fake credential, and let scores quietly drift toward whichever payout pays more this quarter. We don't. Writing the disclosure down in public, naming the Score-Lock Framework on both the editorial side and the commercial side, logging every brand email proposing a "menu of services," and publishing a public errata board are the four things that make the firewall testable rather than promised. A page that contradicts any of those four is the page we want to hear about first.

If you find an issue, write to [email protected]. Acknowledgement within two business days. Material corrections go to the errata board and (for anything that would have changed a recommendation or a rank) get a 60-day pinned notice on the affected page.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Federal Trade Commission, 16 CFR Part 255: Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (2024 revision). ecfr.gov
2. European Union, Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC. Wikipedia article
3. European Union, Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive 2024/825. Wikipedia article
4. UK Committee of Advertising Practice, CAP Code §3.19: Non-broadcast Advertising Code (ASA). asa.org.uk
5. Government of Canada, Competition Act, misleading-advertising provisions. Wikipedia article
6. Australian Government, Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010). Wikipedia article
7. Google Search Central, "Evolving 'nofollow': new ways to identify the nature of links" (rel=sponsored, rel=ugc, September 2019). developers.google.com
8. OpenCorporates entity record for Crak Media Inc., Quebec, Canada (corporate registry source for the CrakRevenue parent entity). opencorporates.com
9. Wikipedia, Affiliate marketing (historical context and industry overview). en.wikipedia.org
10. bestgirlfriend.ai editorial process (12-step workflow, Score-Lock Framework on the editorial side). /editorial-process

Cite this page

If you reference this disclosure in academic, regulatory, or journalistic work, please cite as:

Joly, Alexandra (2026, April 28; updated May 26, 2026). Affiliate Disclosure: How We Earn & Why It Doesn't Sway Scores. bestgirlfriend.ai. https://bestgirlfriend.ai/affiliate-disclosure

Related pages

• About bestgirlfriend.ai and Alexandra Joly: Senior Editor bio, credentials, contact.
• Our editorial process: the 12-step workflow, score-lock on the editorial side, retest cadence, errata policy.
• Methodology landing: the four published scoring pages in one place.
• Privacy policy: what data we collect and what we share with CrakRevenue.
• Terms of use: the contract governing your use of the site.
• Errata board: public log of every correction we have published.

Per-jurisdiction notice

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Last verified May 26, 2026 · See errata log for any post-publish corrections · Editor: Alexandra Joly · Our editorial process · Methodology