How evidence levels work
Updated · Page structure updated; this date is not a price verification.
Most product sites give you one voice for everything, whether the writer used the product or read the box. We label the difference on every record, in the same three words every time.
There are three levels. There will only ever be three. Adding a fourth — a “draft” badge, a “probably good” badge — would let a page slip between the definitions, which is exactly what the system exists to prevent.
Not tested by TailVetted. Product information has been verified from available sources.
Listed information collected and checked against the sources that publish it. No hands-on conclusion, no performance finding, and no implied experience.
Research reviewed — not hands-on tested by TailVetted.
A deeper research evaluation across multiple sources. Still no physical test by us.
Hands-on tested by TailVetted.
We bought the product and ran our published protocol on it. Raw measurements, original photographs and stated limitations.
Labels that are not levels
Four phrases get used loosely on review sites as if they were evidence levels. Here they are not, and the site refuses to build if any of them appears as one:
- “Not yet tested” — that is simply what Product Profile means. It does not need a second name.
- “Research-based comparison” — a research method used inside Research Reviewed.
- “Owner feedback analysis” — also a method inside Research Reviewed, and one we apply carefully, because owner sentiment is the retailer’s data and we do not reproduce it.
- “Long-term tested” — a duration attribute on a Hands-on Tested result. A three-month test is still Hands-on Tested; it just says how long.
What the levels do not mean
- A higher level is not a better product. It describes how much we know, not how good the thing is. A Product Profile can describe an excellent mat.
- Hands-on Tested is not a recommendation. It means we bought it and ran the protocol. Some tested products will do badly, and those results get published too.
- A level never changes because of a commercial relationship. No affiliate programme, sample or payment can move a record up a level.
How a record moves up
Only by evidence, and only with a person’s approval. Moving a record from Product Profile to Research Reviewed requires the deeper research to actually exist on the page. Moving it to Hands-on Tested requires the product in hand, the published protocol run against it, and the raw numbers published — including the spread across trials, so you can see how noisy the measurement was.
Where you will see it
On every catalog card, at the top of every product record, on every guide, and in the machine-readable products feed that AI assistants can read. The disclosure sentence is identical in all of them. If you ever find a page on this site making a claim its level does not support, that is a bug — tell us and we will fix it.