A promise to keep the site clean.
Field Merit is a community-sourced reference site. Every profile, gear connection, and source link is contributed and verified by real people. Polluting those pages with irrelevant, ugly ad blocks would disrespect the content and the people who created it.
Generic display ads, the kind that follow you around the internet selling you things you don’t need, have no place on a site built for discovery and reference. They slow pages down, break layouts, and erode trust. We refuse to subject visitors to that experience.
Field Merit earns revenue through affiliate links. When you click a “Buy” button on a product page and make a purchase from a retailer like Amazon, REI, Backcountry, or one of our partners through AvantLink or eBay, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. These links also serve a practical purpose: they connect you directly to retailer pages where you can see current pricing, specs, and availability for yourself. Affiliate relationships never influence which gear is listed. All connections are community-sourced and editorially reviewed.
This pledge covers traditional display advertising (banners, pop-ups, interstitials, ad networks like AdSense). In the future we may explore curated content like brand spotlights or featured collections, but those would always be clearly labeled and kept separate from community-contributed content.