Privacy Policy

Draft for legal review. This text describes how the site works. Have it checked for your jurisdiction before launch, then remove this line.

This policy explains what personal data Search Community collects, why, and what you can do about it. The site is run by Niraj Raut (the “operator”). Contact details are on the Contact page.

What we collect

• Application: name, email, username, country, role, company, years in SEO, specialisms, links you choose to add, a short bio, why you want to join and what you can contribute. Also a hashed form of your IP address and browser signature, kept for 180 days to prevent abuse.
• Profile: everything you enter on your profile. Fields marked “Public” appear on your expert page. Your email address is never shown.
• Contributions: discussions, replies, experiments, case studies, insights, disclosures and uploaded images, with your name and the date.
• Account activity: saved items, notifications, email preferences, reports you file and moderation notes about your account.
• Security data: login attempts, rate-limit counters and security events, stored with hashed IP addresses and kept for 30 to 365 days depending on severity.
• Emails: a log of which email templates were sent to a masked, hashed version of your address, kept for 30 days to diagnose delivery problems. Message bodies are not stored.

Why we use it

• To review your application and run your membership (contract).
• To show your public profile and contributions to other people (your consent, which you can withdraw by closing your account).
• To keep the community safe: spam prevention, moderation and security logging (legitimate interest).
• To send you the emails you choose in Account settings. Account, security and moderation emails are always sent.

Who can see what

Public: your display name, profile fields marked public, and everything you publish. Members only: nothing beyond what is public. Staff only: your email, application answers, IP hashes, reports, notes and logs. We do not sell data or share it with advertisers. Analytics, when enabled, is anonymised and never receives your name or email.

How long we keep it

• Rejected applications: 180 days. Abandoned, unverified applications: 90 days.
• Resolved reports: 365 days. Read notifications: 90 days. Moderation log: 2 years.
• Security log: 30 days for routine entries, up to 365 days for high-severity entries.
• Your profile and contributions: for as long as your account is open.

Your rights

You can see and change your profile and account data at any time from your dashboard. You can ask for a full export or close your account from Account settings. Closing your account removes your profile, email, saved items and notifications straight away. Published contributions stay online under “Former member” so discussions remain coherent; you can ask for specific items to be removed. You can also ask us to correct or delete data by contacting the team. We respond within 30 days.

Cookies

We use only the cookies needed to log you in and protect forms. See the Cookie Policy.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that affects you, we will say so on the site and by email where appropriate.