Editorial Guidelines

We publish news. Your release goes live as soon as you submit it, and you are responsible for making sure it meets these Guidelines — we do not check releases before they are published. If a published release breaches them, we may remove it, or the part that breaches them, afterwards, and we will tell you why (Part K).

Part A — Status and scope

1.1 These Editorial Guidelines are version 1.2, effective 10 October 2026. Superseded versions are archived and available on request. The version in force on the day a release is submitted is the version that applies to it.

1.2 These Guidelines are incorporated by reference into the Auto Press Hub Terms of Use and Article Submission Terms. By submitting a release you agree to comply with them. Where these Guidelines conflict with those Terms, the Terms take precedence.

1.3 We may amend these Guidelines at any time. The current version is linked in the footer of every page. Changes take effect on publication and apply to releases submitted afterwards.

1.4 Our failure to enforce a Guideline in one instance does not waive our right to enforce it in another.

1.5 What Auto Press Hub is. A publisher of automotive news announcements, read by UK automotive journalists. Releases are published when they are submitted, under the submitter’s responsibility, and are not reviewed by us beforehand. We apply these Guidelines after publication, when we see or are told about a release that breaches them.

1.6 What Auto Press Hub is not. It is not an article directory, a content hub, a link network, an advertising channel or a syndication service.

1.7 Who may submit. Companies announcing their own news, and PR agencies acting on a named client’s authority. In an agency submission the client is the news source, not the agency. We may ask for evidence of the client’s authority and may remove the release until it is produced.

1.8 How to read these Guidelines. Where a Guideline says that something is “not accepted”, “refused” or will “not be published”, it means that it must not be submitted, and that if it is published we may remove it under Part K.

Part B — Identity and verification

Not administration. Part B is the mechanism behind our position under section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013, which protects a website operator only where the person who posted a statement can be identified.

2.1 Every issuing organisation must be identifiable: registered name, company number where it has one, registered address, and a working website.

2.2 Every submitter must be a named individual using a corporate email address on the issuing organisation’s or the agency’s own domain. Free webmail addresses are not accepted.

2.3 Every release must carry a media contact for publication: a name, and an email address or telephone number.

2.4 Identity and contact details must be kept current. We may unpublish a release whose issuing organisation has become unreachable.

Part C — What qualifies as news

3.1 The primary purpose test. If a release is primarily aimed at selling a product or service, it is an advertisement and not a press release. A press release informs journalists and the public about a newsworthy topic. If the primary purpose is to sell, with no other newsworthy element, we will not publish it.

3.2 Qualifying automotive news. Examples, not an exhaustive list:

• A new vehicle, platform, powertrain, battery or drivetrain
• A component, system, material or software launch
• Production milestones, plant news, capacity and manufacturing investment
• A supply contract, OEM programme win, or nomination
• Company financial results, funding (subject to Part H), acquisitions and joint ventures
• Senior appointments and personnel changes
• Awards, industry recognition and independent test results
• Motorsport programmes, entries and results
• Regulatory approvals, homologations and type approvals
• Recalls and safety notices
• Research, studies, surveys and technical whitepapers
• Events, trade shows, conferences and open days
• Facility openings, expansions and relocations

3.3 The news must be stated clearly in the headline.

3.4 Timeliness. Announcements must be current. We will not publish news more than 14 days old unless the release explains why it is being issued now.

3.5 Not accepted by format, regardless of subject: opinion columns, open letters, general-interest articles, buyer’s guides, listicles, product reviews, and thought-leadership essays that carry no announcement.

3.6 Newsjacking. A release commenting on a news story that does not directly involve the issuing organisation is considered case by case, and refused where the connection is tenuous.

3.7 Crisis content. We may remove a release that attaches a product to a public crisis, or that uses charged or speculative language about one. Recalls and safety notices are welcome; monetising an incident is not.

3.8 Archive and bulk submissions. We publish current news, not archive material. We do not accept old releases reissued as new, backdated material, or bulk submissions of historical content, and we may refuse an unusual volume of releases where the pattern indicates archive loading rather than announcement.

Part D — Offers, links and competitors

4.1 Prices and offers. Prices, finance and offers may be stated. Promotional codes and voucher content are not accepted.

4.2 Links. No more than 10 links in a release. Links must serve the reader, not search ranking. Keyword-optimised anchor text is refused; use the organisation or page name.

4.3 All submitter links are published with rel="sponsored". We reserve the right to alter link attributes.

4.4 No over-optimisation. Keyword stuffing, repeated exact-match phrases and releases judged to be written for search engines rather than journalists are refused.

4.5 Competitors. No disparaging or unsubstantiated statements about a named competitor, its products or its people. Factual comparisons are fine.

Part E — Format and images

5.1 Length. No more than 12,000 words.

5.2 Quotes. Name the person quoted and their job title where you can. Opinions must be attributed as the organisation’s opinion, not stated as fact.

5.3 Formatting. Headings, bullet points, tables, bold and links are fine. No embedded scripts, forms, styling or tracking code.

5.4 Links must work when the release goes live. We may unpublish a release pointing at a site that is not live until it is.

5.5 Images. Images are optional. Where you include them: JPEG, PNG or WebP, minimum 1,200px on the long edge. Captions are optional; include a credit where one is required.

5.6 Image rights. You warrant that you hold all rights and consents necessary to publish every image, video and audio file you submit, including for identifiable people, third-party trade marks and logos, circuit and motorsport imagery, and any licensed or embargoed photography. You indemnify us against any claim arising from material you supply. Press-fleet and OEM photography frequently carries usage restrictions — check before you submit, not after.

5.7 AI-generated material. Images or video that are generated or materially altered by AI must be labelled as such in the caption, and must not depict a product, capability, specification or test result that does not exist.

5.8 Embargoes. We accept embargoed releases. Set the embargo date and time on submission; we publish automatically at that moment. Embargoed copy is visible only to us before release. We do not accept an embargo of more than 14 days, and may decline to hold one we cannot operationally guarantee.

Part F — Accuracy, substantiation and third parties

6.1 You are responsible for the accuracy of everything you submit. We do not check releases before they are published, and nothing we do afterwards — including leaving a release in place — is fact-checking on your behalf or transfers responsibility to us.

6.2 Substantiation. You must hold documentary evidence for every claim capable of objective substantiation before you submit, and produce it within three working days of our asking. We may remove a release where evidence is not produced.

6.3 Naming another organisation. You must have the right to name any other organisation in your release and to make any claim you make about it. That responsibility, and any risk that follows, is yours.

6.4 The same applies to third-party logos and trade marks.

6.5 Customer references, endorsements and testimonials. You must have the right to use them.

Part G — Industry standards

7.1 You must ensure, as far as reasonably possible, that your release is accurate and conforms to the standards, codes and regulations that apply to the automotive industry.

Part H — Prohibited content

8.1 Advertisements, and releases that are advertising in substance (Parts C and D).

8.2 Defamatory content, personal attacks, and content intended to shame, harass or exact revenge.

8.3 Content inciting hatred, discrimination or violence.

8.4 False, misleading or unsubstantiated claims, including “miracle” and absolute claims.

8.5 Copyright infringement, plagiarism, and reprints of third-party articles.

8.6 Duplicate content. A release must not have been published on Auto Press Hub before, except where we gathered it from your own media site — your submission then replaces our copy (Article Submission Terms 6.5). Publishing the same news elsewhere at the same time is fine.

8.7 Litigation content without a case number and court. No announcements of an intention to sue, and no characterisation of undecided proceedings beyond what the filed documents allege.

8.8 Financial promotions. No invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity: no open funding rounds, share offers, crowdfunding links, token or cryptoasset offerings, investor solicitations, valuations presented as an inducement, or stock recommendations.

8.9 Cryptoassets and tokenised assets.

8.10 Gambling and betting; adult content and profanity; tobacco, nicotine and vaping; firearms; payday and unsecured lending; health supplements and weight-loss products; prescription drug brand names; make-money schemes; affiliate-marketing content; SEO and link-building services; academic writing services.

8.11 Party-political content, and campaigning for a party or candidate. Industry policy positions are fine.

8.12 Any release with no verifiable issuing organisation.

Part I — Competitions

9.1 Paid-entry competitions are not accepted, because of the illegal-lottery risk under the Gambling Act 2005.

Part J — How releases are labelled

10.1 Everything published on Auto Press Hub is a press release issued by the organisation it concerns, or by its agency. Releases reach us in two ways: we gather them from manufacturers’ public media sites, or they are submitted to us directly — and a submitted release may be published in exchange for payment. Every release carries a persistent label identifying it as a press release and naming the organisation that issued it, and is visually and structurally distinct from any editorial content Auto Press Hub produces itself.

10.2 We set and apply our own standards. We may remove a release, or the part of it that breaches these Guidelines, and submitters do not control what remains published.

10.3 Paid submitter links carry rel="sponsored".

Part K — Publication, removal and remedy

11.1 Releases go live when you submit them. A release is published as soon as you submit it, or at the embargo time you set. We do not review releases before publication. You are responsible for making sure each release meets these Guidelines before you submit it.

11.2 The one exception. A release submitted for a brand your account is not yet authorised to publish for is held until that authorisation is confirmed. If it is confirmed, the release goes live; if it is not, the release is not published.

11.3 After publication. Where a published release breaches these Guidelines — for example because it is offensive, misleading, inaccurate, infringing or unlawful — we may remove it, remove the passage, image or link that breaches them, or stop it being indexed by search engines. We act on what we see ourselves and on reports from readers, journalists, the organisations and people named in a release, and anyone else (Part L).

11.4 We do not rewrite your copy. Where we remove part of a release, we take the material out rather than put our own words in its place. Nothing is published in your name that you did not write.

11.5 We tell you why. When we remove a release or part of one, we tell the submitting account what was removed and which Guideline it breached. Where it can be fixed, you may send us a corrected version and we will republish it at no extra charge.

11.6 Suspension. We may suspend publishing on an account, or close it, where it submits releases in serious or repeated breach of these Guidelines, as the Article Submission Terms allow.

11.7 Fees and allowance. A release that is never published never consumes your allowance or your fee. A release removed after publication because it breached these Guidelines has been delivered, so its fee or allowance is not returned. Where a removal was our error, we restore the release or, if you prefer, return it to your allowance or refund it — see our Cancellation and Refund Policy.

11.8 If you think we got it wrong. Write to us within 10 working days of a removal and we will look at it again. We will reply within five working days.

11.9 We apply these published Guidelines consistently. Decisions to remove are made against them, in our reasonable judgment, and not against case-by-case preference.

11.10 Corrections after publication. Tell us and we will correct a factual error at no charge. Substantive rewrites after publication are treated as a new release.

Part L — Complaints and takedown

12.1 To report a published release, use the Report link on the release, or email contact@autopresshub.co.uk saying which release and what is wrong with it. We acknowledge every complaint within 48 hours.

12.2 A notice of complaint about a defamatory statement should specify the complainant’s name, the statement complained of and where it appears, why it is defamatory, and whether the complainant consents to their name being passed to the person who posted it. We will tell you within 48 hours if a notice is incomplete and what is missing.

12.3 We may remove or amend a release on legal, regulatory or editorial grounds, and will tell the issuing organisation why.

12.4 Removal at the submitter’s request is covered by our Cancellation and Refund Policy.

Contact

Questions about these Guidelines, or about whether something will qualify, are welcome before you submit rather than after.

Automotive Technology PR Limited t/a Auto Press Hub
Email: contact@autopresshub.co.uk