Goodest Goodbye exists to give pet owners honest, practical information during one of the hardest windows in the life of a pet. That only works if the information can be trusted. This page explains how we fund the site, how we decide what to recommend, and the commercial boundaries we hold — so you know exactly where our incentives sit before you make a decision based on anything we have written.
Our independence
Goodest Goodbye is not affiliated with any veterinary practice, cremation provider, aquamation facility, urn manufacturer, memorial products company, or pet industry brand. No one on the business side of this industry has editorial influence. What we publish is decided by us, full stop.
What we do not do
No sponsored content. We do not accept payment in exchange for articles, mentions, product placements, or favorable coverage. Every recommendation on this site is earned, not paid for.
No paid editorial. No company pays to appear in our content, and no outside party sees or approves our articles before they publish. If a product is reviewed well here, it is because we believe it deserves to be. If a product is reviewed critically, we are not going to soften it because the company asked.
No display advertising. We do not run Google AdSense or any third-party ad network. Contextual ad networks in a grief-adjacent niche tend to surface inappropriate content — pet food, mass-market products, weight loss — that undermines the reader's experience in a hard moment. The revenue is not worth the harm.
No pay-to-play reviews. A company cannot buy a review, a higher placement, or the removal of criticism. If a product is listed, we have purchased it, tested it, or evaluated it against documented criteria that apply to every product in the category.
No pressure emails. We will not build an email list by harvesting addresses from readers who contacted us during a loss, and we will not sell or share subscriber data.
How we fund the site
The site is funded primarily through affiliate links. Some links on Goodest Goodbye — to cremation providers, memorial products, books, and similar items — are affiliate links, meaning that if you click one and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission from the retailer. You pay the same price either way. No cost is added on your end.
Affiliate links are not the same as sponsored content
This distinction matters and is often blurred on other sites, so we want to be explicit about it.
With a sponsored placement, a company pays upfront for coverage. They often see the content before it publishes, may request edits, and the site has a financial incentive to write favorably regardless of the product's actual merit. Readers are being sold to under the appearance of editorial coverage.
With an affiliate link, the company does not pay us to include it and has no knowledge of or input into what we write. We choose what to link based on our own evaluation. The company cannot request edits, cannot remove negative language, and cannot influence placement. We earn a commission only if a reader decides the product is right for them and buys it — which means our incentive is to recommend things we actually believe in, because a bad recommendation loses the reader's trust and erodes the business.
When affiliate links appear within an article, you will see a disclosure near the top or adjacent to the link itself. A sitewide affiliate disclosure appears in the footer of every page.
Active affiliate relationships
For transparency, the affiliate programs currently used on this site include:
- Amazon Associates — for books, paw print kits, clay casting kits, physical urns, children's books on pet loss, and similar products
- Pulvis Urns — direct affiliate program for handcrafted memorial urns
- Additional programs may be added over time; this list will be updated when they are
How we evaluate products
A product or service is recommended here only when at least one of these is true:
- We have purchased and used it ourselves, and can speak to what that was like
- We have evaluated it directly against published specifications, third-party reviews across multiple sources, and documented industry standards
- It is a well-established option in its category and we can accurately describe its trade-offs and the readers it best fits
When we recommend something, we also try to describe where it does not fit. A product that works for every reader does not exist, and pretending otherwise is how people end up spending money on things they regret during an already hard week.
Sourcing and accuracy
Medical, legal, and procedural claims on this site are drawn from primary sources: veterinary associations such as the AVMA and AAHA, peer-reviewed veterinary literature, state and municipal law, and published standards from the cremation and aquamation industries. Where a specific claim can be sourced, we link to the source directly so readers can verify it.
This is a complicated subject area. Laws, procedures, and provider options vary by state, by municipality, and by individual practice. We try to be clear about where general information ends and local specifics begin. When a question requires local knowledge, we point readers toward their own vet, state veterinary board, or regional provider rather than guessing.
Veterinary review
Nothing on this site constitutes veterinary advice and no article here replaces a conversation with the person who knows your pet medically. What we try to do is help readers have better conversations with their own vet — by explaining terminology, setting expectations, and clarifying the options that may come up.
Corrections
If there is an error on this site — a factual mistake, an out-of-date claim, a broken link, a misrepresented option — it should be corrected. Verified errors are fixed as soon as we can confirm them, and substantive corrections are noted in the article itself. We would rather be corrected than remain wrong. A public contact channel for accuracy concerns will be added as the site grows.
Last reviewed: April 2026. This policy is a living document — it will be updated as the site's practices evolve.