Privacy Policy

This is a small business website. It has no accounts, no logins, no shopping cart, and no advertising. The only information you actively send us comes from the contact form, and it arrives as an email. Beyond that, we use Google Analytics to understand which pages people read.

The rest of this page explains that in more detail, and is written from what the site actually does rather than from a template.

Information you send us. Our contact form asks for your name, your email address, and a description of your project. That is the whole form. We do not ask for a phone number, a mailing address, or payment details anywhere on this site.

Information that stays in your browser. The Build Calculator runs entirely on your device. The details you enter there — including your name and email — are not transmitted to us when you use it. They are saved in your browser's local storage so the contact form can pre-fill them if you choose to continue, and they only reach us if you then submit that form. We also store your light/dark theme preference the same way.

Usage information. Google Analytics records which pages are viewed, along with the general device and browser information it collects by default.

Technical information. When you submit the contact form, our server reads the IP address your request arrives from and uses it to limit how many submissions can come from one source in a short window. Our hosting provider also keeps standard server request logs, as any web host does.

A submission is validated, checked against a rate limit and a hidden anti-spam field, and then sent to us as an email. It is not written to a database — we do not run one. We use it to reply to you and to discuss the work you asked about.

The IP address used for rate limiting is kept only in the in-memory rate-limit list held by the server process. The rate-limit window itself is about a minute, but an entry can stay in memory past that window until a later cleanup pass, until the same address makes another request, or until the server process restarts — so we cannot honestly promise a fixed deletion time. What we can tell you is that it is never written to a database and never included in the email we receive.

Our own application log of a submission deliberately records only whether the optional fields were filled in and when it happened — not your name, email, or message.

We use Google Analytics 4. It loads only on the live site, not in local development, and it collects usage information such as the pages you visit and the general device, browser, and approximate location information Google derives from your request — including your IP address, which Google receives as part of how the service works.

Google Analytics sets its own cookies in your browser to tell repeat visits from new ones. We have not configured any additional identifiers, we do not send Google your name or email address, and we do not use Google Analytics for advertising, remarketing, or audience targeting.

Alongside page views, we record a small number of specific events: that a contact form was submitted, that someone finished configuring a build in the Build Calculator (the configuration choices only — no name or email), and that an outbound email link was clicked.

This site has the infrastructure for affiliate links, and no published article currently uses one. If and when affiliate links do appear, clicking one may record an analytics event containing a short vendor identifier, the destination website's hostname, and the path of the article you clicked from.

That event deliberately does not include the full affiliate URL or its query string, so referral and tracking codes attached to the link are not sent into analytics. Any article containing affiliate links carries a disclosure near the top of the page — see our affiliate disclosure. Once you follow an outbound link, the destination site's own privacy policy applies.

This site does not set any cookies of its own. The cookies present on the live site are set by Google Analytics, as described above.

We do use your browser's local storage for two things, both of which stay on your device: your theme preference, and the Build Calculator details described earlier. Those calculator values are cleared automatically once a contact form submission succeeds, and you can clear them yourself at any time through your browser's site data controls.

We do not currently show a cookie consent banner. If you would rather not be included in analytics at all, the options in “Your choices” below apply.

Google Analytics — measures site usage, as described above. The analytics script is loaded from Google's servers, so Google receives the request that loads it.

Vercel — hosts and serves this site. Requests to the site pass through their infrastructure, and they keep standard server logs as part of operating it.

Gmail (Google) — delivers contact form submissions to our inbox. The contents of your submission travel through and are stored in that email account.

We do not use advertising networks, remarketing pixels, social media tracking pixels, session-recording tools, chat widgets, or embedded third-party content on this site. The fonts this site uses are served from our own domain, not fetched from a font provider while you browse.

We use what we collect to:

• reply to you and discuss the project you contacted us about;
• operate the site and diagnose errors;
• understand which pages and guides people actually find useful;
• limit automated spam submissions to the contact form;
• measure engagement with outbound affiliate links, if and when any are published.

We do not use your information to build advertising profiles, and we do not send marketing email to people who contact us — there is no mailing list on this site to subscribe to.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.

The service providers listed above process information on our behalf so the site can function — hosting it, delivering our email, and measuring usage. That is different from selling data, and their handling of it is governed by their own terms and privacy policies. We may also disclose information if we are legally required to, or where it is necessary to protect the site against abuse.

We do not operate an automated deletion schedule, and it would be misleading to quote a specific number of days. In practice: contact form submissions live in our email inbox, and we keep them only as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose they were collected — replying to you, and any follow-on work — unless a longer period is needed for legal, security, or operational reasons.

Analytics data is retained according to the settings in our Google Analytics account, which Google controls. The IP address used for rate limiting is transient, as described above. Anything held in your browser's local storage stays there until it is cleared.

About what you sent us. If you have submitted the contact form and want to know what we hold, or want it deleted, email us and we will handle it by hand. We do not have an automated export or deletion tool, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

About analytics. To actually stay out of our analytics you have to stop the Google Analytics script itself from running: block that script for this site in your browser or content-blocker settings, turn on your browser's tracking protection, or install Google's official Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. Any of those works, and none of them will stop the site from working.

Cookie controls are a different thing, and they do less here than people usually expect. Deleting cookies clears identifiers already stored on your device, and blocking cookies stops new ones being stored — but neither prevents the Google Analytics script from loading and still sending measurement requests, which it can do without cookies. We do not offer an opt-out toggle on the site itself.

About browser storage. Clearing site data for this domain removes the theme preference and any saved Build Calculator details.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights over your personal information. We will do our best to honour any reasonable request — just ask.

This site is aimed at businesses and the people who run them. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has sent us information through the contact form, tell us and we will delete it.

We may update this policy as the site changes. When we do, we will revise the “last updated” date at the top of this page. Because this policy describes what the site actually does, a meaningful change to the site is what would prompt a change here.

Questions about any of this, or about information you have sent us? Get in touch.