Privacy Policy

This is the honest version. I wrote it against what the site actually does rather than pasting a template, so it is short, and every claim in it is something you could verify by reading the site’s source.

The summary: the only thing I collect about you is an email address, and only if you type one in. There are no analytics, no advertising pixels, no session recording, and no third-party trackers on this site.

Who runs this site

SEO Lessons is run by Chris McCrone, an individual, based in San Diego, California, United States. The site is seolessons.com. You can reach me at chris@seolessons.com about anything in this policy.

What I collect, and why

1. Your email address — only if you give it to me

There are a couple of forms on this site: one unlocks a free downloadable file, and one asks whether you want to hear when a lesson goes up. Both of them ask for one thing, an email address, and nothing else. No name, no company, no phone number.

If you submit one, I store the address, the date, which form you used, and how many times you have unlocked something. That is the entire record. I use it to send you email about new lessons and new files on this site. I do not sell it, rent it, trade it, or hand it to an advertising platform.

The list lives in this site’s own database, on servers operated by my host. If I ever move it into a dedicated email tool in order to actually send mail, that tool will be named here before it happens.

2. One cookie, and what is in it

When you unlock a file, the site sets a first-party cookie called sl_unlocked. It holds a record number and a signature — nothing else, no email address, no name. Its only job is to remember that you have already given me an address so that no other file on this site asks you again.

It lasts a year, it is marked HttpOnly so page scripts cannot read it, and deleting it in your browser costs you nothing except being asked for an email the next time you download something.

WordPress itself will set additional cookies if you log in to the admin area. That only applies to me.

3. What people type into the search bar

The site logs search queries — the text of the search, how many times it has been searched, how many results it returned, and when. I read that list to decide what to make next, and the searches that return nothing are the most useful part of it.

These logs are not attached to you. No email address, no IP address, no cookie, no identifier of any kind is stored with a query. It is a list of phrases with counters. If you type something personal into a search box on any website you should assume it is logged somewhere, so please do not type anything sensitive into mine — but there is nothing in my log that could connect a phrase back to a person.

4. Server logs

This site is hosted by WP Engine and served through Cloudflare. Like every web host on earth, they keep standard access logs, which include IP addresses, for security, abuse prevention and diagnosing problems. That happens at the infrastructure level, I do not use those logs for marketing, and their retention is governed by their own policies rather than mine.

What I deliberately do not do

• No Google Analytics, and no analytics tool of any kind.
• No Meta pixel, no Google Ads tag, no advertising or retargeting trackers.
• No heatmaps, no session recording, no A/B testing scripts.
• No third-party fonts. The type on this site is whatever your device already has, which is why nothing is requested from a font server.
• No comment system, no forum, no user accounts for visitors.
• No selling, renting or sharing of your email address. Not to partners, not to sponsors, not to anyone.

There is exactly one script on this site, it is served from this domain, and it does four things: the live search, the email form, the click-to-play video, and a small fade-in.

Video, and the YouTube part

Lessons on this site are videos published to YouTube, and the lesson pages embed the YouTube player.

Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Until you click, the page holds a still image and a button, so no request goes to Google and no Google cookie is set. When you do press play, the player loads from youtube-nocookie.com, and at that moment YouTube — which is Google — receives your request and may collect information about you under its own policies.

Embedded YouTube players use YouTube API Services. By using them you are also agreeing to the YouTube Terms of Service. Google’s handling of any data it collects is described in the Google Privacy Policy. You can review and revoke this site’s access to your Google data at any time at Google security settings.

I also use YouTube API Services on my own side to publish and manage videos on my own channel. That involves my channel and my Google account, not yours, and it collects nothing about visitors to this site.

Links to other people’s sites

Lessons link out — to documentation, to tools, to hosts. Where I link to a product I actually use and there is a referral or affiliate arrangement available, I will use it and I will say so right where the link is, in plain language, not in a footnote. A referral link means I may be paid if you sign up. It never changes what I recommend, and it never changes your price.

Once you click any outbound link you are on somebody else’s site under somebody else’s policy. I have no control over what they collect.

Children

This site is aimed at people running their own business or website. It is not directed at children under 13, and I do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has submitted an email address here, write to me and I will delete it.

Your rights, and how to actually use them

Depending on where you live — California, the EU and UK, and a growing list of US states — you have rights over your personal data. Because the only personal data I hold is an email address, honouring them is simple, and I will do it for anyone who asks regardless of where they live:

• See it. Ask, and I will tell you exactly what is stored against your address.
• Delete it. Ask, and it is removed from the database. No retention period, no “we may keep it for legitimate interests.”
• Correct it. Wrong address on file? Tell me the right one.
• Stop hearing from me. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and replying with the word “stop” works just as well.

Write to chris@seolessons.com. It is me reading it, so allow a couple of days, but you will get an answer.

I do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act, so there is no “do not sell my information” process to go through — there is nothing to opt out of.

How long I keep things

Email addresses are kept until you ask me to delete them, or until I shut the list down. Search-query counters are kept indefinitely because they are not about a person. Host and CDN logs are kept on their schedules, which are typically weeks, not years.

Security, stated honestly

The site is served over HTTPS, the database sits behind managed hosting with its own access controls, and the unlock cookie is signed so it cannot be forged by editing it. I am one person, not a security department, so I hold as little as possible — an email address and nothing else — on the principle that the safest data is the data you never collected.

Changes

If I add something that collects data — an analytics tool, an email platform, a comment system — I will update this page and say what changed, before or as it goes live, not quietly afterwards. The date below always reflects the last real change.