Terms of service

These terms are an agreement between you (or the business you sign up for) and Search Observatory (“we”, “us”) for using Search Observatory. By creating an account or using the service you agree to them. If you sign up for a business, you confirm you can bind it.

1. The service

Search Observatory audits websites for SEO, answer engines (AEO) and AI Visibility, suggests improvements, writes content drafts, reports results from tools you connect (such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics), and gives agencies a client portal with onboarding, contracts, documents, messages and invoices. Features depend on your plan and may change as we improve the product. Features marked early access or coming soon may change or end.

2. Your account

Keep your sign-in details safe and tell us about any unauthorized use. You’re responsible for what happens in your workspace, including what your team and clients do there. You must be at least 16 and use the service for business purposes.

3. Acceptable use

• Only add websites you own, manage or are authorized to audit, and only connect Google accounts and properties you’re allowed to use.
• Don’t use the service to break the law, send spam, harass anyone, upload malware or content you don’t have rights to, or overload or attack websites (including through our crawler).
• Don’t try to get around plan limits, the fair-use safety net or security, reverse engineer the service, or resell it without our written agreement.

We may pause work or suspend accounts that put the service or others at risk, and will tell you why when we can.

4. Your content and data

You keep ownership of everything you put into Search Observatory and everything it produces for you (audits, drafts, reviews and reports). You give us permission to store and process it only to run the service for you, as described in our privacy policy. You’re responsible for having the right to add it, including your clients’ information.

Agencies: you’re responsible for your relationship with your clients, including having their permission to add their data and invite them, the contracts and documents you send them, and the deposits and invoices you collect. Client payments go to your own Stripe account; you’re the seller and handle refunds and disputes.

5. AI-generated output

Recommendations, AI Visibility results, drafts, onboarding documents and monthly reviews are produced with AI and automated checks. They can be incomplete or wrong, and AI assistants’ answers change over time. Review everything before you publish, send or rely on it. Nothing in Search Observatory is legal, financial or medical advice, and AI-written documents aren’t a substitute for a professional’s review. We don’t guarantee any ranking, traffic or AI recommendation result.

6. Third-party services

Connections to Google, WordPress, Stripe and other services are governed by those services’ own terms. We’re not responsible for them, and features that depend on them may change if they do.

7. Plans, billing and cancelling

• Paid plans are billed monthly in advance through Stripe at the price shown when you subscribe, plus any applicable taxes, until you cancel.
• You can cancel at any time in Settings → Your plan. Your plan stays active until the end of the period you’ve paid for, and we don’t refund partial months unless the law requires it.
• We may change prices with at least 30 days’ notice; changes apply from your next billing period.
• If a payment fails, we’ll ask you to update your card; if it isn’t resolved, we may pause or close the workspace.
• When a workspace closes, its data is kept for 30 days and may then be deleted. Export anything you need first.

8. Our service and intellectual property

We own Search Observatory, its software, design and brand. These terms don’t give you rights to them beyond using the service. If you send us feedback, we may use it without obligation to you.

9. Availability

We work to keep Search Observatory available and your data safe, but the service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, to the extent the law allows. There may be interruptions for maintenance or outside our control.

10. Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, we aren’t liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for lost profits, revenue, rankings or data, and our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim (or $100 if you haven’t paid us). Some places don’t allow these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

11. Indemnity

You’ll defend and compensate us for claims arising from content you add, websites you audit without permission, your use of the service against these terms, or your dealings with your clients.

12. Ending these terms

You can stop using the service and delete your account at any time. We may end or suspend your access if you seriously or repeatedly break these terms, or if we stop offering the service (with reasonable notice and a chance to export your data where possible). Sections that by their nature should continue (such as 4, 5, 10 and 11) survive.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We’ll show the new date at the top and tell account owners about important changes before they take effect. Continuing to use the service after that means you accept them.

14. General

These terms are governed by the laws of the place where Search Observatory is established, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If part of them can’t be enforced, the rest still applies. These terms and our privacy policy are the whole agreement about the service.

Contact

Questions about these terms: use our data request form or email privacy@searchobservatory.com.