I'm building a review site and want a publishing setup that supports schema, canonical tags, and affiliate monetization

A good setup for a review site usually needs three layers:

1. Content model for reviews/comparisons
2. SEO layer for schema + canonicals
3. Monetization layer for affiliate links/disclosures

Here’s a practical approach.

Recommended stack

Option A: Headless CMS + frontend framework

Best if you want flexibility and good SEO.

• CMS: Sanity, Contentful, Strapi, or WordPress headless
• Frontend: Next.js, Astro, or Nuxt
• Hosting: Vercel, Netlify, or Cloudflare Pages

Why this works:

• You can generate schema markup per review page
• You can set canonical tags cleanly
• You can control affiliate link routing and tracking
• Easy to build comparison tables and review templates

Option B: WordPress

Best if you want fast setup and less engineering.

Use:

• A solid SEO plugin like Rank Math or Yoast
• A review/affiliate plugin if needed
• Custom post types for reviews, products, and comparisons

This is easier to launch, but less flexible at scale.

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Publishing setup you should support

1. Review content type

Each review page should have structured fields like:

• Product name
• Brand
• Summary verdict
• Pros / cons
• Rating
• Category
• Price range
• Affiliate links
• FAQ
• Updated date
• Reviewer name / author bio

This lets you automate schema and comparison tables.

2. Schema markup

For review pages, use:

• Review
• Product
• AggregateRating if you legitimately collect ratings
• FAQPage if you have FAQs
• BreadcrumbList

Important:

• Only include rating schema if the rating is real and visible on the page
• Don’t fake aggregate ratings
• Make sure schema matches page content

Example conceptually:

• Review page for a laptop → Product + Review
• Comparison article → ItemList + FAQPage
• Buying guide → Article + FAQPage

3. Canonical tags

Canonical tags help avoid duplicate content issues when:

• You have UTM parameters
• Multiple category pages point to the same review
• You syndicate content
• You generate filtered pages

Rules:

• Every page should have a self-referencing canonical
• Parameter URLs should canonicalize to the clean URL
• Near-duplicate pages should point to the primary version
• Don’t canonical everything to your homepage

4. Affiliate monetization

You’ll want:

• Clean outbound affiliate link management
• Link cloaking or redirect paths like /go/product-name
• Tracking for clicks and conversions
• Disclosure near affiliate links and at the top of pages

Good practices:

• Add rel="sponsored nofollow" to affiliate links
• Use a redirect manager for link maintenance
• Store merchant URL and tracking ID separately
• Support multiple affiliate programs per product if needed

5. Compliance and trust

For review sites, trust matters a lot.

Include:

• Affiliate disclosure
• Editorial policy
• Review methodology page
• Author bios and experience
• Last updated timestamps

This helps with both users and SEO.

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A simple page architecture

Review page template

• Title
• Intro summary
• Verdict box
• Specs / key features
• Pros and cons
• Full review
• Comparison section
• FAQs
• Affiliate CTA buttons
• Disclosure
• Related content

Comparison page template

• Headline
• Comparison table
• Best for each use case
• Deep links to individual reviews
• FAQ
• Disclosure

Category page template

• Introduction
• Featured products
• Filters/sorting
• Internal links to reviews
• Canonical management for filter variants

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If you’re using Next.js

A strong implementation pattern is:

• CMS stores review data
• Next.js renders pages server-side or statically
• SEO metadata generated per page:
  • title
  • meta description
  • canonical
  • Open Graph
  • JSON-LD schema
• Affiliate links handled through a route like /out/[slug]

That gives you control and performance.

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Minimum viable publishing setup

If you want a simple but solid launch:

• CMS: WordPress or Sanity
• Frontend: Next.js or WordPress theme
• SEO: schema + canonicals via templates
• Affiliate links: redirect manager
• Disclosure: sitewide policy + page-level note

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My recommendation

If you’re building a serious review site and want long-term flexibility:

• Sanity + Next.js is a very strong combo
• WordPress + Rank Math is the fastest path to launch

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a data model for review pages,
2. a schema JSON-LD template, or
3. a full publishing architecture for WordPress or Next.js.