This page explains the rules behind the reviews and buying guides on SeaBuckthornWorld. If you only read one thing, read this. Products are scored against a published rubric, the math is on the page, and commissions never affect rankings.
How pages are checked
The publisher is responsible for what the pages say, and the sources each page lists show what it relies on. The about page explains what is checked and how mistakes are corrected, and that the pictures are illustrations, not photographs.
How we choose what to review
We start with the products people actually search for and buy, then add the brands the research suggests deserve attention. A brand can’t pay to be included, and a brand can’t pay to be left out.
How we score
Product picks are scored from 0 to 10 across five criteria:
| Criterion | Weight | What we look at |
|---|---|---|
| Purity and sourcing | 30% | Species, origin, organic certification, what part of the plant is used |
| Fatty acid profile | 25% | Printed omega-7 content for berry oil, omega-3 and 6 for seed oil |
| Third-party testing | 20% | Published certificates of analysis, contaminant screening |
| Value | 15% | Cost per day at the label serving and at the dose used in human studies, not cost per bottle |
| Transparency | 10% | Whether the label tells you what you’re actually getting |
We publish each score next to the product. We haven’t tested any product hands-on yet, so every score is research-based. It relies on label data, certificates, and published analysis rather than our own use, and the brand reviews carry a research-based label that says so.
The cost-per-day rule
Bottle prices mislead. A $35 bottle that lasts ten weeks beats a $22 bottle that lasts two. Cost per day is worked out at the label serving and at the dose the human studies used, usually 0.5 to 3 grams of oil, and it’s printed next to a product when there’s a quoted price to divide it by. Right now 17 of the site’s 32 product picks carry one. Topical oils and skincare don’t, because no trial sets a daily amount for them, and some picks don’t because their guide quotes no price for them.
Health content rules
Health claims are graded on a four-step scale: strong human evidence, moderate human evidence, preliminary research, or traditional use. The evidence standards page explains the scale and counts how many pages carry a grade today. Sources link to PubMed or a DOI wherever the paper has one, and we publish results that went against the product category, including the 2022 meta-analysis that found no effect on blood sugar, blood pressure, or BMI.
Corrections policy
If something on a page is wrong, here’s what happens.
- What counts. A factual error, a misread study, a wrong dose or number, a dead source link, or a claim the evidence doesn’t support. Disagreeing with a grade counts too, if you bring a study.
- How to report it. Email hello@seabuckthornworld.com with the page URL, the sentence, and a source if you have one.
- What changes. If the fix changes what a page tells you, such as a number, a grade, a verdict, or a safety point, the page gets a dated correction note saying what changed and why, and its updated date moves. Typos and dead links get fixed without a note.
- Retracted studies. A retracted paper stays in the source list, labelled as retracted, and the claims that leaned on it are rewritten. The how we research page tells the story of the blood-pressure trial that went this way.
What the scores mean in practice
A 9 or above is a strong pick at its price. A 7 to 8.9 is good, with a specific weakness the review names, usually cost or a missing certificate. Below 7 doesn’t get recommended, and if it appears on the site at all, it appears as a warning. The score travels with the product wherever it’s mentioned, so a guide never quietly upgrades anything.
How to read one of our reviews
Start with the cost per day where there is one, because that’s the number marketing hides. Then the score breakdown, which shows where a product lost points. Then the evidence grade on any health claim attached to the category. A research-based verdict leans on label data and certificates instead of use, so read it as a judgement of what the label proves.
What we don’t review
We skip products that won’t say what they are. If a label hides whether the oil comes from the berry or the seed, or the brand can’t produce basic documentation, the product doesn’t get a polite score. It gets excluded, and when it shows up in searches anyway, we’d rather say why than pretend we missed it.
Updates and re-scores
Formulas change, prices move, and certificates expire. When a product changes and we learn about it, it gets re-run against the same rubric. The tools page runs the same math live, including the cost per day calculator, so you can check any bottle against our method in the meantime. Our research standards cover the evidence half of every score.
Frequently asked questions
Can a brand ask for a re-score?
Yes, but only with new evidence. A brand can send a new certificate of analysis, a reformulated label, or a corrected fact, and the product gets re-run against the same published rubric. What a brand can't do is negotiate the score itself. The rubric decides, whoever asks.
Illustration.