Review Sites With Ties to Mattress Companies
Over the past few years, we have witnessed a disturbing trend in the mattress industry.
First, capitalizing on the success of Casper and others in selling mattresses online, the internet was suddenly flooded with sketchy mattress review bloggers. Many of these were SEO experts who were looking to make a quick buck by publishing sales pitches disguised as unbiased reviews. Thanks to unwitting consumers clicking the links in these “reviews,” these sites have done very well. We think of them as the digital equivalent of the sleazy mattress salesman – though it would be easy to argue that they are even worse, since their success is entirely based on disguising themselves as unbiased experts. Click here to learn how to easily spot an untrustworthy mattress review site.
More recently, the plot has thickened. Mattress companies have started acquiring or funding mattress review websites…! Sometimes there is direct ownership, while in other cases the relationships are more complicated and may even involve holding companies, cross-ownership, common backers, or other complex arrangements. Regardless of the form it takes, we believe that such ties pose an obvious conflict of interest.
For the casual mattress shopper, these connections are extremely unexpected – and in our view, highly relevant to assessing the trustworthiness of the information on that website. As such, it's our opinion that the prominent disclosure of any such ties should be the very first thing that every consumer sees when landing on any page of these websites. Unfortunately, the reality is that their disclosure is typically limited to a single page on the reviewer’s website, if they are even disclosed at all. This trend has become so pervasive that we now estimate that most mattress shoppers end up visiting at least one mattress information site that has corporate ties to a mattress company without even realizing it.
To help make this easier for consumers, we’ve decided to publish the handy list below of mattress information websites that have corporate ties that we believe the average consumer would find relevant when assessing the information on that site. In most cases these sites could easily be misconstrued as fully independent resources, even by a savvy shopper.
We recommend that you bookmark this page so you can refer back to it in case you end up on one of these sites later in your shopping process. It would also be useful to share this page so that any friends who may soon be shopping for a mattress will have this important information too.
List of Conflicted Mattress Review Websites:
|
Website |
URL |
Notes |
|
Sleepopolis |
sleepopolis |
Casper financed the acquisition of this site by lending $5 million to the owners of Mattress Clarity in 2017. After an ownership change in 2020, this site is now part of the same company as Mattress Advisor, which has had ties to Leesa (see below). |
|
Mattress Clarity |
mattressclarity |
The owners of this site borrowed $5 million from Casper to acquire Sleepopolis in 2017. After an ownership change in 2020, this site is now part of the same company as Mattress Advisor, which has had ties to Leesa (see below). |
|
Mattress Advisor |
mattressadvisor |
The lead investor in Mattress Advisor and its portfolio of mattress review sites (One Better Ventures) was also the primary investor in Leesa (until Leesa was sold to 3Z Brands in 2023). When the Mattress Advisor website was first launched, it contained a disclosure that has since been removed regarding Leesa's connection to the site. |
|
Best Mattress Brand |
bestmattress-brand |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. |
|
Mattress Nerd |
mattressnerd |
After an ownership change in 2018, this site is now part of the same company as Mattress Advisor, which has had ties to Leesa (see above). |
|
Honest Mattress Reviews |
honestmattressreviews |
This site was acquired by a company backed by Brooklyn Bedding. Previously, a court had ruled that this site failed to disclose a “significant business relationship” with GhostBed. |
|
Sleep Junkie |
sleepjunkie (formerly sleepjunkie |
Owned and operated by Amerisleep. In mid-2020, the NAD determined that it is insufficiently clear and conspicuous for consumers visiting Sleep Junkie to know that this site is an "advertising website owned and operated by Amerisleep, a mattress company whose products are being touted on the sites." In response to this ruling, Amerisleep stated that it “agrees to comply with NAD’s modification recommendation and ensure consumers understand that the sites include advertising content." |
|
Sleep Authority |
sleepauthority |
This site is owned and operated by DreamCloud, LLC, which operates Nectar, DreamCloud, Level, and Awara. |
|
Real Mattress Reviews |
realmattressreviews |
The operator of this site was a principal of Halo Bedding, the company that created and owned the Idle Sleep mattress brand. Idle Sleep also went on to develop a family of other mattress brands, including Haven, Eden Sleep, and Country Living. |
|
Memory Foam |
memoryfoammattress |
Published by Relief Mart, producer of the Tempflow mattress brand. |
|
Savvy Sleeper |
savvysleeper |
Owned and operated by Amerisleep. In mid-2020, the NAD determined that it is insufficiently clear and conspicuous for consumers visiting Savvy Sleeper to know that this site is an "advertising website owned and operated by Amerisleep, a mattress company whose products are being touted on the sites." In response to this ruling, Amerisleep stated that it “agrees to comply with NAD’s modification recommendation and ensure consumers understand that the sites include advertising content." |
|
Mattress Inquirer |
mattress-inquirer |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. |
|
The Best Mattress |
thebest-mattress |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. As of mid-2020, this site redirects to savvysleeper [dot] org, another Amerisleep property (see above). |
|
Slumber Sage |
slumbersage |
The owners of this site borrowed money from Casper to acquire Sleepopolis. |
|
Mattress-Reviews |
mattress-reviews |
This site is published by Novosbed, which is prominently disclosed on both the header and the home page. |
|
MattressReviews |
mattressreviews |
This site is published by Novosbed, which is prominently disclosed on both the header and the home page. |
|
Top Mattress Choices |
topmattresschoices |
This site is operated by Helix. |
|
Mattress Journal |
mattressjournal |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. |
|
Memory Foam |
memoryfoammattress-guide |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. |
|
What’s the Best Bed |
whatsthebestbed |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. |
|
Consumer Mattress Reviews |
consumer-mattress-reviews |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. |
|
Best Mattress Online |
bestmattressonline |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. |
|
Best Mattress Reviews |
bestmattress-reviews |
Site authors are employees or consultants of One Mall Group, parent company of Amerisleep. |
|
Best Mattresses |
bestmattresses |
This site is operated by Eight Sleep. |
Of course, these are just the sites we know about. If you aren’t sure about a site, try to search for their domain on whois.com to see if they are registered publicly or privately. Trustworthy websites like GoodBed have nothing to hide, and gladly disclose the name of the actual person and/or company that owns the site. By contrast, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any trustworthy websites that are registered privately. If a website is registered privately, the "Who.Is" listing will not show the name or contact info for the website owner — instead it will show the name of a private domain registration service. This means that the website's owner paid an extra fee to conceal their identity from the public. There are many private domain registration services, but some of the more common ones include "Domains by Proxy, LLC" and "Perfect Privacy, LLC".
Lastly, note that we did not include hyperlinks to any of these websites. As you may know, links are one of the most important indicators that Google uses to determine which websites should be shown at the top of your search results. Most of these websites already show up very highly in search results, partly on account of links from their corporate sponsors, so we don’t want to add more fuel to that fire.
If you would prefer that these sites not appear at the top of your search results, the best thing you can do is link to other websites that you consider more credible and that cover similar subject matter. We hope you’d agree that GoodBed.com would be a site worthy of your support in this manner. Click here to see more details about how you can help other consumers find trustworthy guidance about mattresses.
