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Privacy policy

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DEATH TO SEO is operated by Peter from deathtoseo.com. Peter is responsible for the personal data described here (the data controller) and answers privacy questions at privacy@deathtoseo.com. This policy covers what we collect when you visit the site, request a Cause Check, buy a service, or give us access to Google Search Console, and what we do with it.

What we collect

  • Cause Check form: your domain, your email address, what you tell us changed and when, and any notes you add.
  • Service request forms (Autopsy, Rescue, Launch Cover, Watch): your domain, your email address, and your answers about the work, such as when traffic dropped, roughly how many URLs your site has, who manages your Search Console, and your launch date.
  • Emails you send us: whatever you include, such as your name, your company, and details about your site.
  • Google Search Console data (Autopsy, Rescue, Recovery Program, Watch): when you add us as a user, we can read your site’s Search Console reports: clicks, impressions, positions and pages by query, indexing reports, and the Manual actions report. We ask for read-only (“Restricted”) access. We never ask for your Google password.
  • Temporary site access (Rescue, if you choose it): on Shopify, Webflow, WordPress, Squarespace or Wix, temporary access you give us so we can upload redirect files. We use it for that task only.
  • Public data about your domain: estimated traffic and rankings from third-party data providers, archived copies of your pages from the Wayback Machine, and the live responses of your URLs.
  • Billing details: the name, company and email address you pay with, and the payment record.
  • Request logs: Cloudflare, which hosts the site, processes the IP address, user agent and requested page of each visit to serve and protect the site, and keeps those logs for a limited time under its own retention limits. We look at them only for security and debugging.
  • Site analytics: we count visits with Umami, an analytics tool we run on our own server. It sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. For each page you view, it records the page address (dropping everything after the “?” or “#” except campaign tags such as utm_source), the page title, the site that sent you, your screen size and language, and the browser, operating system, device type and rough location (country, region and city) worked out from your browser and IP address. It doesn’t store your IP address. It also counts a few named actions: starting a free check, a check that finds a problem, sending the Cause Check or a service request form, and clicking a button to book a service. It never records what you type. Browsers that send a Do Not Track signal aren’t counted.

What we don’t collect

  • We don’t use marketing cookies, retargeting pixels or session-replay tools on this site. Our analytics sets no cookies at all.
  • We never ask for write access to Search Console, Google Analytics or any other system, except the temporary site access for Rescue described above, and only if you choose it.

What we do with it

  • Cause Check data: we use it to write and send your Cause Check, and to reply to you. We don’t add you to a newsletter.
  • Search Console data: we use it only to do the work you bought: the Autopsy verdict, Rescue verification, Recovery Program reviews, and Watch alerts and update comparisons.
  • Public domain data: we use it to find the time of death, check old URLs, and compare your drop with Google’s update calendar.
  • Billing details: to take payment, send receipts, and keep the records tax law requires.
  • Site analytics: to see which pages and free tools get used, and which ones lead to a Cause Check or a booking, so we know what to fix and what to write next.

What we never do

  • We never sell your data, in any form.
  • We never contact your agency or developer about you. You decide who sees our work.
  • We never publish your data, your site’s name, or your results without your written permission. Our public case files use only public forum cases, anonymised.
  • We never use your Search Console data or deliverables to train AI models, and we use AI tools only on terms that don’t let the provider train on your data.

Removing Search Console access

You can remove our access at any time: in Search Console, open Settings, then Users and permissions, and remove our user. We stop using the access when the work you bought is finished. Watch’s before-and-after update comparison needs the access to stay in place; without it, Watch continues with outside checks only.

Who else sees your data

We share data only with the service providers that run parts of the service, and each sees only what it needs:

  • Cloudflare: website hosting.
  • Hetzner: hosts the server our analytics tool runs on.
  • Formspark: receives Cause Check and service request form submissions.
  • DataForSEO and Serper: public-data services we query. They receive your domain and, for paid work, the search queries we look up for you. They never receive your clicks, traffic or other Search Console figures.
  • AI tools: we may use AI tools to help analyse the data you share and draft your report. They receive what that task needs, such as your domain, the queries involved and Search Console figures, never your Google login.
  • Google: Search Console access happens inside Google’s own product.
  • Our email and file storage providers: they carry the emails we exchange, including your Cause Check and reports, and hold the working files for paid work.
  • Stripe: processes your payment through the payment link we send you. We don’t store card details.

How long we keep it

  • Cause Check requests that don’t become paid work: 12 months, then deleted.
  • Search Console data and deliverables for paid work: for as long as you’re a customer, plus 90 days, then deleted, except the deliverables we sent you, which remain in your inbox.
  • Payment records and receipts: as long as tax and accounting law requires.
  • Request logs: Cloudflare’s retention limits, described above.
  • Site analytics: kept while the site runs. The records hold no IP address and nothing you typed.

Deletion and your rights

You can ask for a copy of everything we hold about you, or ask us to delete it, by emailing privacy@deathtoseo.com. When you ask, we delete your form data, Search Console data and deliverables, and keep only the payment records the law requires. We respond inside one business day. We don’t charge for the request, and we don’t require ID for it: your email address is the key.

Changes

If we change this policy in any material way, we’ll email every active customer what changed before it takes effect.

Questions: privacy@deathtoseo.com