Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

RankWinz ("we", "our", or "us") is committed to protecting your personal data and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect information about you when you visit our website at rankwinz.com, submit an enquiry, or engage our services. It also describes your rights under applicable data protection law, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) where applicable.

We encourage you to read this policy carefully. By using our website or engaging with our services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood the practices described below. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at privacy@rankwinz.com before proceeding.

2. Data We Collect

We collect and process the following categories of personal data:

Information You Provide Directly

• Contact details: Your first name, last name, and email address when you submit an enquiry or contact form.
• Business information: Your website URL, company name, industry/niche, and monthly budget range when completing our brief request form.
• Communications: The content of any messages, emails, or correspondence you send us, including descriptions of your SEO situation, goals, and timelines.
• Service data: Information necessary to deliver our link building services, including your domain data, target keywords, and Google Search Console or analytics access where provided by you.

Information Collected Automatically

• Usage analytics: Pages visited, time on site, referral source, browser type, device type, and general geographic location (country/region level).
• Technical data: IP address (anonymised where possible), operating system, and session identifiers.
• Cookies: See Section 6 for full details of our cookie use.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use the personal data we collect for the following purposes:

• Responding to enquiries: To review your brief, conduct a preliminary link profile audit, and respond to your contact form submission within our stated response time.
• Service delivery: To onboard you as a client, manage your campaign, produce placement reports, and communicate campaign progress and results.
• Analytics and site improvement: To understand how visitors interact with our website, identify areas for improvement, and optimise our content and user experience.
• Marketing communications: To send you relevant SEO insights, case study updates, or service announcements, but only where you have given explicit consent or where we have a legitimate interest and you have not opted out.
• Legal and compliance: To meet our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

Under GDPR Article 6, we rely on the following legal bases for processing your personal data:

• Contractual necessity (Art. 6(1)(b)): Processing required to fulfil our service agreement with you, including campaign management and reporting.
• Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)): Processing for our legitimate business interests, including responding to enquiries, improving our website, and fraud prevention, provided these interests are not overridden by your rights.
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)): Where you have actively opted in to receive marketing communications or permitted analytics cookies. You may withdraw consent at any time.
• Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)): Where processing is necessary to comply with applicable law, such as tax record-keeping requirements.

5. Data Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to any third party. We may share limited data with trusted service providers who help us operate our business, strictly on a need-to-know basis and under binding data processing agreements:

• Email and CRM platforms: To manage client communications and enquiry follow-ups (e.g. transactional email tools).
• Analytics providers: Anonymised, aggregated usage data shared with analytics platforms to understand site performance.
• Cloud storage and project management: Secure, encrypted cloud services used to store campaign data and reporting documents.
• Payment processors: If you engage our services, invoice and payment data is processed through PCI-DSS compliant payment infrastructure.

All third-party processors are vetted for GDPR compliance and are prohibited from using your data for any purpose beyond what is strictly necessary to provide the service in question.

6. Cookies Policy

Our website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — to ensure the site functions correctly and to help us understand how it is used. We use the following categories of cookies:

• Essential cookies: Necessary for core site functionality such as form submission and navigation. These cannot be disabled.
• Analytics cookies: Used to collect anonymised data about site usage (pages visited, session duration, referral sources). Activated only with your consent.
• Preference cookies: Store your browsing preferences, such as language or display settings, to improve your experience on return visits.

When you first visit our site, you will be presented with a cookie consent banner. You may accept all cookies, configure your preferences, or decline non-essential cookies. You can update your cookie preferences at any time by clearing your browser cookies and revisiting the site. For more information on managing cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org.

7. Data Retention

We retain personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected:

• Active client data: Retained for the duration of the engagement plus 3 years following the end of the contract, to meet legal and tax obligations.
• Enquiry and contact form data: Retained for 12 months from the date of submission if no service engagement follows.
• Analytics data: Anonymised aggregate data may be retained indefinitely; identifiable session data is deleted after 26 months.
• Email communications: Retained for 2 years from the date of the last exchange.

Once the applicable retention period expires, data is securely deleted or anonymised in accordance with our internal data management procedures.

8. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR and EU GDPR, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• Right of access: You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification: You may ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten"): You may request that we delete your personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing.
• Right to data portability: You may request that we provide your data in a structured, machine-readable format for transfer to another organisation.
• Right to object: You may object to processing based on legitimate interests, including direct marketing.
• Right to restrict processing: You may ask us to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to withdraw consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at privacy@rankwinz.com. We will respond within 30 days. If you are dissatisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

9. Data Security

We take the security of your personal data seriously and implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect it against unauthorised access, loss, alteration, or disclosure. Our security practices include:

• SSL/TLS encryption: All data transmitted between your browser and our website is encrypted via HTTPS.
• Encrypted storage: Client data and sensitive documents are stored in encrypted form on access-controlled cloud infrastructure.
• Access controls: Access to personal data is restricted to team members who require it to perform their role, with role-based permissions and regular access reviews.
• Incident response: In the event of a data breach that poses a risk to your rights, we will notify affected individuals and the ICO within 72 hours of becoming aware.

While we implement robust safeguards, no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. We encourage you to use strong passwords and to notify us immediately if you suspect any unauthorised use of information you have shared with us.

10. Third-Party Links

Our website may contain links to third-party websites, tools, or resources. These links are provided for your convenience and do not signify our endorsement of those websites or their content. We have no control over, and accept no responsibility for, the content or privacy practices of any third-party site. We recommend reviewing the privacy policy of any external site you visit via links from rankwinz.com.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or for other operational reasons. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify active clients by email. We encourage you to review this page periodically to stay informed about how we protect your data. Continued use of our website following a policy update constitutes your acknowledgement of the revised policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests relating to this Privacy Policy or the way we handle your personal data, please contact our data protection contact at:

• Email: privacy@rankwinz.com
• Website: rankwinz.com/contact

We are committed to working with you to resolve any concerns about your privacy in a fair and timely manner.