OlympicBars.co.uk
Disclosure

How the links on this site work

This site is not yet in any affiliate programme. Links to shops are plain links and earn us nothing today — though we do intend to earn commission from them in future, and this page will say so plainly when we do.

The current position, stated plainly

OlympicBars.co.uk is not a member of any affiliate programme. Not Amazon Associates, not Awin, not any direct scheme run by a manufacturer or retailer. Every link on this site that takes you to a shop is an ordinary link to that shop's own product page, with no tracking parameters, no affiliate tag and no programme identifier attached.

If you buy a barbell after clicking one of those links, this site earns nothing today. Nobody is paid, no commission is generated, and no record of your click reaches us.

And the part most sites leave out: we intend to

This site is meant to make money eventually, through Amazon Associates andAwin — the two affiliate networks most UK retailers in this trade use. Neither has been applied for or approved, so neither is live. But saying nothing about the intention would leave you with a misleading impression of why the site exists, so here it is.

No tracking URL has been invented in the meantime. A tag you are not approved for does not work, and a made-up Amazon tag or Awin ID can route commission to somebody else's account entirely. The site is instead built so that filling in two credentials in one file switches every link over at once, with no change to any page. Until those credentials exist, they are empty strings.

What changes on the day a programme goes live

  • The notice at the top of every page carrying such a link changes to say that commission may be earned, in plain words, above the content it applies to.
  • Where Amazon links appear, Amazon's required statement — "As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases" — appears with them, as their operating agreement requires.
  • This page is rewritten to name which programmes and which merchants are involved.
  • The standing note above the footer on every page changes to match.

What would not change is which bars appear and what is said about them, for a structural reason rather than on trust: inclusion on this site is decided by whether the manufacturer publishes a specification complete enough to tabulate. Three UK sellers are excluded on exactly that test. It does not involve commission, and could not be bent by it without the site abandoning its only rule.

Why the notice is at the top

UK guidance on this is clear. The Competition and Markets Authority expects commercial relationships to be disclosed upfront and unmissably, and the Advertising Standards Authority applies the same principle to affiliate marketing: a reader must know about the relationship before they engage with the content it affects.

A line in the footer does not satisfy that. So on this site the disclosure sits above the content, on every page that could carry an outbound link, in a box you cannot scroll past without seeing. There is a second standing note above the footer on every page as well, and this page besides.

For the guidance itself, see theCMA guidance on disclosing commercial relationshipsand theASA advice on affiliate marketing.

No paid placements

No shop, brand or manufacturer has paid to appear on this site, to be positioned anywhere in particular, or to be described in any particular way. None has been offered the opportunity. If that ever changes, paid content will be labelled as advertising, which is a legal requirement rather than a favour.

No prices, and no price markup

This site publishes no prices. They go stale within days, a wrong price on a commercial page is an advertising problem, and the shop is the only reliable source. For the same reason, no page here emits Product or Offer structured data: marking up a price or an availability this site does not know would be misleading to readers and to search engines alike.

The product photographs are not of the products

Most product pictures on this site show a generic, unbranded barbell of that category rather than the bar named beside them, and each one carries a visible "illustrative image — not the actual product" label for that reason. An unlabelled generic photo on a named product's page would tell you that is what that product looks like, which is both misleading to you and unfair to the manufacturer.

The two shortcuts were both unacceptable. Copying a merchant's product photograph onto a commercial site is copyright infringement — no UK fair-dealing exception covers it — and it is the kind of thing that gets an affiliate account closed. Generating a picture of a named bar would be a fabrication, which is the one thing this entire site is built to avoid.

Real images arrive through the legitimate routes: the Amazon Associates product feed for bars sold on Amazon, Awin advertiser feeds for their retailers, and asking specialist brands directly for permission. They are swapped in product by product, and the "illustrative" label disappears from a product the moment its real photograph is in place.

No reviews, and why that matters here

Nobody at OlympicBars.co.uk has trained on any of this equipment. That is stated on every page, and it is the reason there are no scores, ratings, rankings or "best bar" verdicts anywhere on the site.

It matters to a disclosure page specifically, because the combination of invented reviews and hidden affiliate links is exactly how this corner of the internet earns its reputation. Removing the reviews removes the mechanism.

Today these links earn nothing. One day they are meant to. You should hear that from us rather than work it out.

Last reviewed when the site was built, 24 October 2026.
In summary

Where things stand

  • No affiliate programmes joined or approved
  • Amazon Associates and Awin are the intended routes
  • No tracking parameters on any outbound link
  • No commission earned on any purchase today
  • No paid placements or sponsored listings
  • No prices published anywhere
  • No Product or Offer structured data
  • No reviews, scores, ratings or rankings
  • No copied manufacturer photography
  • Product images labelled as illustrative until licensed
  • Disclosure at the top of every page, not the footer
The shops

Who we link to

6 shops serving the UK. None of them has any commercial relationship with this site.

See them
Questions

Disclosure: common questions

Including the uncomfortable one about what this site gets out of it.

Are the links on this site affiliate links?

Not yet. OlympicBars.co.uk is not currently a member of any affiliate programme, and every outbound link is a plain link to the shop’s own page with no tracking parameters and no programme ID attached. If you buy something after clicking one today, this site earns nothing.

But you intend them to be?

Yes, and it is fairer to say so than to imply the site has no commercial purpose. The intention is to join Amazon Associates and Awin, which is how sites like this are normally funded. Nothing has been applied for or approved yet. The day any of it goes live, the notice at the top of every page carrying such a link changes to say so, before the content it applies to — and this page gets rewritten to name the programmes.

Why not just add the links now and sort the disclosure out later?

Because a tracking URL you are not approved for does not work, and inventing an Amazon tag or an Awin ID can attribute commission to somebody else’s account. The site is built so the links can be switched on by filling in two credentials in one file, with no change to any page. Until those credentials exist, they stay empty.

Would affiliate commission change what gets listed?

No, and the reason is structural rather than a promise. What gets listed is decided by one test: does the maker publish a specification complete enough to put in a comparison table? Three UK sellers are excluded because they do not. That test has nothing to do with commission, and it is applied in the data file rather than by editorial judgement.

Why is the disclosure at the top of the page rather than the footer?

Because UK guidance requires prominence. The Competition and Markets Authority and the Advertising Standards Authority both expect commercial relationships to be disclosed upfront and unmissably, before someone reads the content that is influenced by them. A footer mention does not meet that standard, so the notice sits above the content on every page that carries an outbound link.

Do the shops pay to be listed?

No. There are no paid placements, no sponsored listings and no paid positions anywhere on this site, and no shop has been contacted for payment or has offered any. If that ever changes, any paid content would be labelled as advertising, which is a legal requirement and not a courtesy.

Why are there no prices?

Barbell prices move constantly and a wrong price is a problem under advertising rules as well as being useless to you. Rather than publish figures that go stale within days, this site links to the shop and asks you to check there. It also keeps the site inside Amazon’s rules, which forbid caching or displaying Amazon prices outside their API. And it is why no page emits Product or Offer structured data — marking up a price this site does not know would be misleading.

Why are the product photographs generic?

Because no licensed photograph of any specific bar has been obtained yet, and the alternatives were both unacceptable. Copying a merchant’s product shot is copyright infringement and gets affiliate accounts closed; generating a picture of a named bar would be a fabrication. So the product images are generic unbranded bars, each one labelled “illustrative image — not the actual product”, and they are being replaced per product as real licensed images arrive through the Amazon and Awin feeds and directly from brands.

Why are there no reviews?

Nobody here has trained on any of this equipment. A review written without using the thing is worthless and a ranking built on such reviews is actively misleading, because it looks like knowledge. So there are no scores, stars, ratings or “best bar” verdicts on this site, and the guides explain how to judge a bar yourself instead.

What does this site get out of it today?

Nothing at all. It is a new site with no programme approved, built because comparing published barbell specifications side by side is genuinely useful and almost nobody does it honestly. The commercial model comes later; the accuracy has to come first or there is nothing worth monetising.