Editorial Policy
Our Commitment to Accuracy, Transparency, and Usefulness
Salary information directly affects how people negotiate their pay, evaluate job offers, and plan their careers. That makes it one of the most consequential types of information you can publish online — and one of the easiest to get wrong.
At WhatIsTheSalary.com, we hold ourselves to a clear editorial standard: every piece of content on this website must be thoroughly researched, honestly presented, and genuinely useful to the person reading it. This page explains exactly how we do that.
Who Creates the Content
WhatIsTheSalary.com is founded and operated by Shahzada Muhammad Ali Qureshi, a software engineer by education and an experienced SEO professional by practice.
All editorial decisions — what topics to cover, how to research them, how to structure the content, and when to update it — are made by the founder. A content writing team is currently being trained under the same editorial standards outlined on this page. No content goes live on this website without passing through the research process and quality checks described below.
We are not a faceless content farm. Every page on this website reflects a deliberate, hands-on research process.
How Content Is Researched and Written
We follow a structured, multi-step research process for every piece of content published on this website. Here is exactly what that looks like:
Step 1 — Manual Topic Research
Before any writing begins, we research the topic manually. This means understanding the job role in depth — what the role involves, what qualifications it typically requires, which industries it appears in, and what factors realistically drive compensation up or down. We do not skip this step. It is the foundation everything else is built on.
Step 2 — Primary Source Data Collection
We gather salary data from the most credible and widely recognized sources available, including:
- Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) — for U.S. occupational wage data and employment statistics
- Glassdoor — for company-reported and employee-reported compensation data
- LinkedIn Salary Insights — for role-specific compensation trends across industries and regions
- PayScale — for compensation benchmarking and skill-based salary breakdowns
- Indeed — for job market salary ranges and real-time listings data
- Government labor portals — for official wage and employment data from relevant countries and regions
- Niche professional communities and groups — for real-world salary discussions from working professionals in specific fields
We do not rely on a single source. Cross-referencing multiple platforms is a non-negotiable part of our process.
Step 3 — AI-Assisted Verification and Comparison
We use AI research tools — including Perplexity, Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, and DeepSeek — as additional verification and comparison layers. These tools help us cross-check figures, surface additional context, and identify inconsistencies across sources.
To be clear: AI tools are used as research aids, not as content generators. No salary figure or factual claim on this website is published based solely on AI output. Every data point is validated against primary human sources before it appears on a page.
Step 4 — Structured into a Complete Answer
Once the research is complete, the content is structured to answer every reasonable question a user might have about that salary topic — in a single page. This includes salary ranges by experience level, location-based variations, factors that affect pay, industry differences, and anything else relevant to giving the reader a full picture.
This is what separates WhatIsTheSalary.com from platforms that show you a number and nothing else.
Our Standards for Every Published Page
Every piece of content on this website is held to the following standards before it is published:
Accuracy — All salary figures and factual claims must be supported by at least one credible primary source. Figures that vary significantly across sources are presented as ranges with context explaining why the variation exists.
Completeness — A page is not ready to publish until it answers the full scope of what a user searching that topic would reasonably need to know. Partial answers do not meet our standard.
Clarity — Content is written in plain, direct language. We do not write for search engines at the expense of the reader. If a person cannot understand the page easily, it is rewritten.
Honesty — We do not inflate salary figures to make content seem more attractive. We do not downplay ranges to appear conservative. We present what the research shows, with appropriate context.
Transparency — Where data is uncertain, estimated, or varies significantly by region or circumstance, we say so clearly. We do not present salary figures as more definitive than they are.
Use of AI Tools — Full Disclosure
We believe in being fully transparent about how AI is used in our research process, because readers deserve to know.
We use the following AI tools as part of our content research workflow:
- Perplexity — for sourced, real-time research queries
- Google Gemini — for data comparison and contextual verification
- ChatGPT — for cross-referencing and research assistance
- Grok — for additional data validation
- DeepSeek — for comparative research across multiple outputs
These tools help us work more thoroughly and efficiently — but they do not replace human judgment, primary source verification, or editorial review. AI-generated content is never published directly. It is always reviewed, fact-checked against primary sources, and rewritten to meet our editorial standards before anything goes live.
We are transparent about this because responsible AI use in content research is something readers and search engines alike deserve to understand clearly.
How We Handle Errors and Corrections
Salary data changes. Labor markets shift. New studies come out. And sometimes, despite our best efforts, something on a page may be inaccurate or outdated.
When that happens, here is our corrections process:
Reporting an Error If you find something on this website that appears to be incorrect, outdated, or misleading, please contact us at contact@whatisthesalary.com with the page URL and a description of the issue.
Review Every correction request is reviewed personally by the founder. We do not dismiss reader-reported errors — we investigate them against our source materials.
Update If the reported issue is confirmed, the page is corrected promptly. We do not leave known inaccuracies live on the website while we deliberate.
Response We respond to all correction requests within 24 hours to acknowledge receipt and let you know the outcome of our review.
We treat correction requests as a valuable part of maintaining quality — not as criticism. Readers who take the time to flag issues are helping make this website better for everyone.
Content Update Frequency
Salary data is not static. Compensation trends shift with economic conditions, industry demand, inflation, and labor market changes. Our update policy reflects that reality.
Immediate updates are made whenever:
- A reader reports a factual error or outdated figure
- We identify an inaccuracy through our own review process
- A significant market event affects compensation data for a covered role
Periodic reviews are conducted on existing pages to ensure data remains current and relevant as labor markets evolve.
Every page that is updated carries a “last updated” date so readers always know how recent the information is.
What This Website Is and Is Not
To be completely clear about the scope and purpose of WhatIsTheSalary.com:
This website is an independent informational platform providing researched salary data and career-related guidance for educational purposes.
This website is not a recruitment agency, a staffing firm, a financial advisory service, or a substitute for professional career or compensation advice.
Salary figures published on this website represent researched estimates and reference points based on available data at the time of publication. Actual compensation varies based on individual qualifications, employer, location, industry, economic conditions, and many other factors.
Readers are encouraged to use this website as a starting point for understanding salary expectations — and to verify figures with employers, professional recruiters, or official labor market sources when making significant career decisions.
Feedback on Our Editorial Standards
If you have questions about how we research content, want to suggest a source we should be referencing, or have feedback on our editorial approach, we welcome that conversation.
Reach us at contact@whatisthesalary.com — we read and respond to every message personally.