What we sell, what we publish, and the wall between them
We sell advertising and publish independent research to the same audience. That only works if the line between the two is public, and if it holds in a slow month as well as a good one. Here is where we have drawn it and why, so you can hold us to it.
Last updated September 2026
Section 1
Editorial independence
The analysis isn't for sale, and that's what makes the advertising worth buying
Which vendors appear in a Buyer Guide's Vendor Landscape, how we describe them and how we order them are editorial calls, made on market relevance. If you could buy them, the guides would stop being useful to the CIOs our advertisers want to reach, and the advertising would be worth nothing.
What we sell is placement, and we label it
Spotlight Listings and Featured Vendor placements are advertising. Each one is labeled “Paid placement,” and each sits in its own block beside the analysis rather than inside it. That follows the FTC's guidance: paid placement should be disclosed clearly enough that nobody mistakes it for editorial judgment.
Paying changes nothing about how we cover you
A Spotlight buyer gets no softer assessment and no better position, and a vendor who has never paid us anything is covered on the same terms. When an assessment is unfavorable, we publish it and tell the buyer why.
No pay-to-rank, in the code as well as the copy
Directory search ordering ignores what a vendor has bought. Whatever position you hold is the position you would hold if you had never paid us anything.
Someone reads every change a vendor submits
Claimed vendors can correct their own record, and nothing goes live unread. We edit for neutrality and take out superlatives, from everyone, including the vendors who pay us.
We do sell advertising, and we label it everywhere it appears. How Spotlight Listings work has the full disclosure, including the review every placement goes through before it runs. How we compile, source and correct the Directory profiles themselves is in How we build Directory listings.
Section 2
Guest contributions
We publish guest bylines selectively and by invitation, and the ones that work are always the same shape: a senior operator writing about something they were personally on the hook for. If that’s you, we’d like to hear from you, and the pitch is short — a few paragraphs, not a finished draft. What doesn’t work is an article an agency places for a client, because the value to a reader is in who lived the story.
If you’d like to place a piece rather than pitch one
There is a second route, and it sits in a section of its own rather than among our editorial coverage. The CIOPages Executive Forum is a paid annual membership for senior leaders. Members are reviewed before they are invoiced, every piece is edited to the same standard as everything else here, and each one is labeled as a Paid Guest Contribution on the article and on every card where it appears. Membership does not extend to a dofollow link, a Buyer Guide ranking, or editorial coverage.
The Executive Forum — what it costs, and what it asks of youWho we publish
- Sitting or recent CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CISOs, chief architects and equivalent senior operators
- Writing under their own name, about work they were personally accountable for
- On something our readers already come here for: IT strategy, enterprise architecture, AI governance and adoption, technology cost and FinOps, sourcing, and the organizational side of all four
- With something specific to say: a decision, a number, something that didn't work
What doesn’t work here
- Unsolicited finished drafts, and articles an agency places for a client. Those belong in the Executive Forum, which has a section and a bar of its own
- Bylines where the named executive didn't write it and the views aren't theirs
- Pieces that depend on getting a link to a product, client or campaign
- Anything already published elsewhere, or syndicated across several sites
- AI-written drafts sent as original work
- A vendor pitch dressed as thought leadership. If it ends up recommending the product, it's advertising, and we sell advertising separately
What a contributor gets
- Your byline, your title, and a two-line bio
- One link in the bio: your company or your LinkedIn, your choice
- Editing for clarity and house style, with the final text back to you before it runs
- A push through our newsletter and social channels
How to be considered
Send a short note — not a finished article, and not an attachment. Include:
- Your role, your organization, and what you were accountable for
- A three-sentence thesis: your point of view, not your topic
- Three to five bullets of what the piece would cover
- Anything you've published before, if you have
If it fits what we’re working on, we’ll come back to you. If you haven’t heard within two weeks, it wasn’t a fit this time — no follow-up needed.
Pitch a contributionSection 3
Links, PR & coverage
The short version, so nobody spends a week chasing it: your free Directory listing already links to your site, and that is the link we can give you at no cost. Our editors choose the links inside our own writing, for the reader, so those aren’t for sale. We don’t trade links, and we don’t add paid ones to pieces we have already published. Paid guest contributions have a home of their own: the Executive Forum, a section separate from our editorial coverage, where every piece is labeled a Paid Guest Contribution and outbound links are marked rel="sponsored".
Your listing already links to you, free
Every Directory profile carries the company website, claimed or not. So a link to your site isn't something you have to negotiate for. It's already on the record buyers see when they compare your category.
Our editors choose the links in our own writing
Inside articles, Buyer Guides and glossary entries, links go where the point being made leads: standards bodies, vendor documentation, original research. That's a call we make for the reader, so it isn't for sale and there's no rate card to ask for.
Advertising links are marked as advertising
Links on paid placements, and on profile fields a vendor supplied, are marked as advertising. That's what search engines ask for on paid and self-submitted links, it's what every credible directory does, and it keeps both your domain and ours out of trouble. It's also what lets us sell placement without touching the editorial.
We don't trade links
A link from us should mean we thought a reader would want it, and a swap can't deliver that. We get too many exchange requests to answer them one by one, so please don't hold a campaign waiting on a reply.
Paid guest contributions are labeled, and their links are marked
Executive Forum articles sit in a section separate from our editorial coverage, and each one is labeled a Paid Guest Contribution at the top of the page, not in small type at the foot. Outbound links carry rel="sponsored", which is what search engines ask for and what protects your domain as much as ours. Membership doesn't reach links inside our own writing, or how we evaluate a vendor.
Reach is the thing worth buying
A placement puts you in front of buyers who are halfway through comparing your category, which is usually what the link request was really after. It's self-serve, the price is published, and it's live in about a day.
What to buy instead
If what you want is to reach buyers halfway through comparing your category, a labeled Spotlight placement does that directly. From $199 per guide per year, bought in a few minutes, with no sales call.
What we sell will change as we add formats. Newsletter sponsorships and other placements may open later, and this page is where they will show up first. What doesn't change is the line: advertising is labeled and sits beside the analysis, and the analysis itself is never for sale.
See open slotsSection 4
Corrections
Getting a fact wrong about a vendor breaks the thing we sell, so corrections are free, welcome from anyone, and never tied to a purchase. We would much rather hear it from you than leave it wrong. Send the URL, the specific error, and a source we can check. We look at it within five business days.
What we’ll correct
- Factual errors: wrong capability, wrong pricing model, wrong integration, wrong owner
- Facts that have gone stale after a rename, an acquisition, a funding round or a discontinued product
- A category that's putting you in front of the wrong buyers
- Broken or redirected links to your site
- Anything we've misquoted or credited to the wrong person
Where we hold the line
- Take down an accurate assessment because it isn't flattering
- Rewrite our analysis to match a positioning deck
- Drop a competitor from a guide, or move one to your advantage
- Swap a factual description for approved marketing language
- Take a page down in exchange for a purchase, or leave one up in exchange for one
The practical version
This page is the reasoning behind the answers. The guide itself is in three parts — vendor listings, writing for us, and these principles — with prices and step-by-step checklists. It downloads as a PDF in several editions, so you can take just the part you need.