How do you know the puzzles are of high quality?

It is easy for anyone to claim that they produce high quality puzzles and follow established crossword standards. But do they? Just sit down with one and solve it yourself.

What objective criterion should you look for? Here are some accepted guidelines as formulated by reputable publishers and editors.

1. Theme: A theme makes a puzzle more enjoyable by providing an additional challenge, hint and thrill of discovery to the solver. This is where the creativity of the author stands out.
2. Author byline: No self-respecting crossword author will submit for a publication that does not carry their name on the puzzle. If a source of crosswords does not publish the author's name on each puzzle, then a claim that it is by top authors is very suspect.
3. Word Fill: Good authors use words that are "lively" not obscure. Short words must be accessible to anyone with a reasonable education and have a mix of current culture and classical knowledge encompassing sports, literature, TV, film, etc. Diseases and other medical problems, cursing, ethnic and racial epithets, religious or other insults, sexual and some other bodily-function references are generally considered taboo words in crosswords. Obscure words, especially when they intersect, abbreviations no one uses, awkward excerpts from quotations, contrived words, etc., are evidences of an unskilled author or the use of a computer program.
4. Clues: Must be factually accurate. They must match their answer in number and part of speech. They must not duplicate part of the answer. Ideally, no clue in a puzzle should duplicate an answer word anywhere in the grid. They must, at bare minimum, hint that an answer is an abbreviation or foreign word, or a slang and the like.
5. Grid blacks: Good authors tend to use as few black squares as possible. For a 15x15 puzzle size, about 37 black squares are considered the absolute limit. Crosswords with higher count of black squares indicate an unskilled author or the use of a computer program.
6. Word count: For a 15x15 puzzle of average difficulty, 72-78 total words (counting both Across and Down words) is considered an acceptable range. If it is lower, it tends to make the puzzle very difficult for average solvers and if it is higher, will contain too many small words (4 letters or less) that tends to make a puzzle very bland and boring. Computer generated crosswords suffer from the latter.