Editorial policy and review standards

This policy exists so readers can judge the work. Google’s documentation on helpful, people-first content asks publishers to make authorship, sourcing, and purpose obvious. We agree with that, independent of rankings.

Who

Named reviewer: Helen Marsh, Managing editor. Named reviewer for Pest Kill. Checks identification, pesticide-safety, and bite/sting copy against EPA labels, CDC public-health notes, and university extension fact sheets. Not a licensed pest-control operator or clinician. Pest Kill is the publisher. We are not affiliated with the EPA, CDC, USDA, or any university. Citations to those agencies are citations, not endorsements of this site.

How

• Each pest page is an original article. We do not scrape or rewrite other directories.
• Identification and biology are checked against taxonomic names in current use and against extension fact sheets.
• Control steps follow IPM order: inspect, deny food/water/harborage, exclude, then targeted control.
• Field-kit product links, when present, are chosen by the publisher for that page. We do not scrape other sites’ Amazon modules.
• We do not invent homemade pesticide formulas. We do not recommend cancelled active ingredients.
• Wildlife pages emphasize legal exclusion and licensed operators, especially for rabies-vector species and migratory birds.
• Internal references such as {pest:norway-rat} must resolve to a human-readable name and, when the pest exists, an internal link. Unresolved template syntax must never reach visitors.
• A published date is the date that page went live, or the date of that content wave. It is not restamped when we fix a template.
• A modified date changes when the source file for that article changes in a meaningful way. Template and navigation edits do not rewrite every article’s date.
• A reviewed date appears only when a recorded editorial review exists for that page or corpus. We do not mark every URL as reviewed today, and we do not invent historical review activity.
• Structured data uses the same published and modified dates shown on the page.

Why

The directory is written for people who already have a pest problem, not for search engines. If an article would not be useful printed as a field card, it should not be published.

Corrections

If you find a factual error — a misidentified species, an unsafe method, a broken source, or a product claim that does not match a label — tell us.

• Use the contact form and choose “Correction to an article,” or email contact@pest-kill.com.
• Include the page URL, the sentence that is wrong, and a source we can check (EPA label, CDC page, or university extension fact sheet).
• Substantive corrections are made on the page. We do not silently swap in new copy while keeping an old date. The modified date updates when the article text changes.
• We cannot diagnose a bite, dispatch a technician, or promise a timeline for every email.

What we will not invent

We do not manufacture original research, product tests, personal case studies, or professional licenses. Helen Marsh is named as managing editor and copy reviewer against public sources. She is not a licensed pest-control operator or clinician. If a qualification cannot be shown from this project’s files, we do not add it.

What we will not publish

• Graphic content that promotes cruelty or treats killing as entertainment.
• Instructions for illegal access, banned chemicals, or unregistered pesticide mixes.
• Medical claims that contradict CDC or other public-health consensus.
• Fake addresses, fake licenses, or implied affiliation with government agencies.
• Thin location pages that only swap a city name.