Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: March 31, 2026 · Effective: March 31, 2026

The short version: We collect only what we need to run RankCause. We never sell your data. Your website data belongs to you. You can request deletion of your account at any time, and some AI-powered features send relevant data to third-party AI providers to generate their output — see below.

1. Information We Collect

Account Information

When you create an account, we collect:

Email address (required for authentication and communications)
Full name (optional, for display purposes)
Password (stored as a one-way bcrypt hash — we never store plaintext passwords)
Account creation date and last login date

Website & SEO Data You Provide

When you use RankCause, you provide:

Domain names and URLs you wish to monitor
Configuration settings for crawls and alerts
Keywords and competitor domains you track

Data We Collect Automatically

We collect limited technical data when you use the service:

IP address (for security, fraud prevention, and rate limiting)
Browser type and operating system (for compatibility)
Pages visited and features used within the application
Error logs and performance data for service improvement

Connected-Account Credentials

If you connect Google Search Console, Google Analytics, a CMS, or another third-party account, we store the resulting access tokens / API credentials encrypted at rest. See Security.

Payment Information

We do not store credit card numbers or sensitive financial data. All payment processing is handled by Stripe. See the Payment Processing section for details.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

Provide the service: Crawl websites, track rankings, generate reports, and deliver all RankCause features you subscribe to
Authenticate you: Verify your identity and maintain session security
Process payments: Manage subscriptions, upgrades, downgrades, and billing cycles
Send transactional emails: Account confirmations, billing receipts, alert notifications, and critical service announcements
Improve the service: Analyze usage patterns (in aggregate, not individually) to improve features and performance
Enforce our Terms: Detect and prevent abuse, fraud, and violations of our Terms of Service
Provide support: Respond to your requests, questions, and bug reports
Power AI-based features (paid plans only): Generate content briefs, AI change explanations, AI-suggested fixes, and AI-visibility (GEO) tracking — see AI Features & Third-Party AI Platforms

We will never use your data to train our own AI/ML models for commercial purposes, or share individual-level data with third parties for advertising. Data we send to AI providers to generate a feature's output (see below) is governed by that provider's own terms, not used by us to train anything.

4. Google API Data

RankCause integrates with Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 to provide ranking and traffic data. Our use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

What Google Data We Access

Google Search Console: search query impressions, clicks, positions, and coverage data for your verified properties
Google Analytics 4: session, user, and conversion data from properties you grant access to

How We Use Google Data

To display your SEO performance data within your RankCause dashboard
To generate reports and track trends over time
To trigger alerts when significant changes occur

Limitations on Google Data Use

We do not use Google API data to:

Serve advertisements
Share with third parties except as necessary to provide our service
Determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes
Sell or transfer to data brokers

You can revoke RankCause's access to your Google data at any time via your Google Account permissions page.

5. AI Features & Third-Party AI Platforms

Community and trial accounts get no AI features and no AI credits. On paid plans with the relevant feature enabled, RankCause uses third-party AI providers as follows:

Content analysis (Anthropic / Claude)

Content briefs, AI change explanations, and AI-suggested technical fixes (e.g. title, meta description, canonical, hreflang, or schema markup suggestions) are generated by sending relevant data to Anthropic's Claude API. Depending on the feature, this can include: your page's crawled content (headings, content sections, word count, existing metadata/schema), competitor page content used for comparison, and a description of a detected ranking or traffic change. This processing is done to generate that feature's output for you — Anthropic is not used to train our models, and we do not use this processing to serve you advertising.

AI-visibility / GEO tracking (OpenAI, Perplexity, Google Gemini)

If your plan includes GEO / AI-visibility tracking, we send your tracked keyword queries to one or more of OpenAI (ChatGPT web-search), Perplexity, and Google Gemini, to check whether and how your brand or pages are cited in that platform's AI-generated answer. We also use Anthropic's Claude to help judge whether a returned answer's wording plausibly derives from your page's content.

What this means for you

These AI providers process the data described above under their own terms of service and privacy policies.
If you do not use AI-powered features (or are on a plan without them), none of your data is sent to these providers for this purpose.
See our Data Processing Agreement for these providers' role as sub-processors.

6. Payment Processing

All payment processing is handled by Stripe, Inc. When you subscribe to a paid plan:

Your credit card information is entered directly into Stripe's secure, PCI-compliant forms
We never see or store your full card number, CVC, or expiry date
We store only a Stripe Customer ID and Stripe Subscription ID to manage your subscription
Stripe's privacy policy governs their handling of your payment data: stripe.com/privacy

Billing receipts are sent directly by Stripe to your account email address.

7. Cookies & Tracking

Essential Cookies

We use a small number of first-party cookies to run the Service:

access_token — HTTP-only, secure JWT cookie that authenticates your session (default lifetime: 1 hour, or until you sign out). Cannot be read by JavaScript.
refresh_token — HTTP-only, secure cookie, scoped only to the sign-in-refresh endpoint, used to issue a new access_token without asking you to log in again (default lifetime: 14 days). Cannot be read by JavaScript.
sx_csrf — anti-CSRF token used to verify that form submissions come from our own pages. Deliberately readable by our own JavaScript (this is required for the double-submit-cookie pattern), not third parties.
active_project — remembers which project/domain you last had selected, so the dashboard reopens where you left off.
sx_theme / sx_lang — remember your light/dark theme and language preference.
aff_ref — set only if you arrive via a partner/referral link; records which partner referred you for our affiliate program (see the Partner Agreement). Lasts 30 days and is refreshed on each new click of a partner link. Not third-party advertising.

What We Do Not Use

No third-party advertising cookies or tracking pixels
No social media tracking pixels
No Google Analytics on our marketing pages (we practice what we preach — we use our own SEO tools)
No fingerprinting or cross-site tracking

All of the cookies above are first-party and used to operate the Service (authentication, security, your preferences, and — if applicable — partner-referral attribution) rather than for third-party advertising. You can block cookies in your browser settings, but this will prevent you from staying signed in and from some preferences being remembered.

8. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide services. Specifically:

Account data: Retained until you delete your account
Displayed SEO history: How far back your dashboards show history depends on your plan: 30 days (Trial/Starter), 180 days (Growth), 365 days (Pro), or 730 days (Enterprise). Community accounts have no crawl history.
Underlying ranking & traffic records: Kept up to 730 days regardless of plan, then automatically pruned
Change history (changelog): Kept up to 365 days, then automatically pruned
Page content snapshots: We keep the most recent snapshots per page and automatically prune older ones (beyond roughly 180 days / the most recent ~24 crawls per page, whichever keeps more)
Core Web Vitals telemetry: Kept up to 60 days
Billing / audit records: Retained up to 7 years as required by financial and compliance recordkeeping

These are operational defaults and may be adjusted for legitimate business or legal reasons.

When you request account deletion, we immediately scrub personally-identifying fields (email, name, password) from your account, deactivate it, and revoke connected OAuth/API credentials — the account can no longer be used or used to identify you from that point on. Removal of the remaining, now-de-identified records is targeted within 30 days, except billing records, which must be retained per legal requirements.

9. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data:

Encryption in transit: All data transmitted between your browser and our servers is encrypted via TLS/HTTPS
Password hashing: Passwords are hashed with bcrypt — we cannot recover your password
HTTP-only cookies: Authentication tokens are stored in HTTP-only cookies, inaccessible to JavaScript
Encrypted credentials: OAuth tokens, CMS credentials, and other connected-account secrets are encrypted at rest (Fernet: AES-128-CBC + HMAC-SHA-256) rather than stored in plaintext
Database access controls: Production database access is restricted to application servers only
Regular security updates: We keep all dependencies patched and updated

No method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. If you discover a security vulnerability, please email us immediately at security@seointelligence.app rather than posting it publicly.

10. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

For All Users

Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
Correction: Update inaccurate data via Settings → Profile
Deletion: Request deletion of your account and associated data by contacting us. We immediately scrub identifying information and deactivate the account; see Data Retention for what happens next.
Portability: Export your SEO data in CSV/JSON format from Reports, or request a structured export of your account profile and domains at any time

For EU/EEA Residents (GDPR)

Under GDPR, you additionally have the right to:

Object to processing based on legitimate interests
Restrict processing in certain circumstances
Lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority

Our legal basis for processing is: performance of a contract (service delivery), legitimate interests (security and fraud prevention), and consent (optional communications).

For California Residents (CCPA)

California residents have the right to know what personal information is collected, to opt out of the sale of personal information (we do not sell data), and to non-discrimination for exercising these rights.

To exercise any of your rights, contact us at privacy@seointelligence.app. We will respond within 30 days.

11. Children's Privacy

RankCause is not directed at children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe we have inadvertently collected such information, please contact us immediately and we will delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make significant changes, we will:

Update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page
Send an email notification to all registered users
Show an in-app notification for 30 days after the change

Your continued use of the service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy. If you disagree with the changes, you may delete your account before they take effect.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests related to this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please contact us:

RankCause

Privacy inquiries: privacy@seointelligence.app

Security issues: security@seointelligence.app

General support: support@seointelligence.app