Home › Advertising & affiliate disclosure
How we earn money — and how we don't
We'd rather over-explain this than have you wonder. The short version: a couple of honest, clearly-labeled income sources keep the site free, and none of them ever touch the safety data or your privacy.
Affiliate links
Some pages — especially our buying guides and the elder-care essentials list — include affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, the retailer (such as Amazon) may pay us a small commission. It costs you nothing extra, and it never changes which products we recommend. We suggest items because we believe they're genuinely useful, not because of the commission. As an Amazon Associate, Lodestone earns from qualifying purchases. When you click an affiliate link you leave for the retailer's own site, which sets its own cookie to credit us — our privacy page explains exactly how that works and how to avoid it.
Display advertising
As of September 17, 2026 this site carries display ads, served by Google and its advertising partners. They are what lets a free directory pay for its own upkeep. Three rules govern them and they are not negotiable: every ad is visibly labeled as an ad; no ad appears beside a facility carrying an abuse flag, a Special Focus designation, or a one-star rating; and no advertiser can move a facility up or down any list. And you will always get the information you came for before you are shown an ad — never an ad between a question and its answer. Our privacy page explains what the ad cookies collect and how to switch personalized ads off.
Clearly-labeled sponsors
Some pages may show a sponsored panel — for example, a local elder-law attorney or care planner — always plainly marked as sponsored. Sponsors pay a flat fee. Paying us never moves a facility up or down in any list, and never hides or softens a safety record. A sponsor message will never appear in a way that implies it endorses, or is endorsed by, any specific care facility.
What we will never do
We will never sell or share your contact information, never charge families to use the site, and never take "referral fees" or "placement commissions" for steering you to a facility — the practice that funds many commercial senior-referral services. We run no lead generation: there is no form on this site, no inquiry, and no phone number of yours for anyone to buy. Money always stays in its clearly-marked lane, separate from the facts.
Why we tell you all this
The whole point of Lodestone is trust. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission asks sites to disclose paid relationships, and we agree with the spirit of it: you deserve to know exactly how a free service stays free. If anything here is ever unclear, that's our failure to fix — not yours to puzzle out.