Privacy policy
WebOws Design Limited, Company No. 13440631, registered in England. Last updated September 2026.
Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 2026
At WebOws Design ("we", "our", or "us"), we respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This policy explains how we collect, use, and protect the information you provide when using our website www.webowsdesign.co.uk.
The data controller is WebOws Design Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 13440631. You can reach us using the details in section 14.
1. Information We Collect
Some information you give us deliberately, and some is collected automatically when you load a page. Both are set out below.
What you give us:
- Contact information: your name, email address, and any phone number, service selection or message you enter into our contact form.
- Email data: anything you send us if you communicate with us by email.
- Free tool submissions: the website address or search phrase you enter, and the name and email address you give if you ask for the full results. Section 5 covers this in detail.
- Call bookings: your name, email address, the time you asked for, and any phone number or note you add. Section 6 covers this in detail.
What is collected automatically when you visit:
- Technical data needed to serve the page: your IP address, browser and device type, and the page you asked for. This is handled by our hosting provider, Cloudflare, which keeps its own server and security logs. We do not have access to those logs as a searchable record and we do not use them to build a profile of you.
- Our own essential cookie: a single cookie that remembers the choice you make in the cookie banner, so you are not asked again on every page. These are listed in our Cookie Policy.
- Analytics data, only if you accept our cookie banner: page views, which page was viewed, the site that referred you, and general information about your browser, device and rough location. Collected by Google Analytics, which sets cookies on your device to do this - see our Cookie Policy for what they are, how long they last, and how to withdraw your consent at any time.
- A basic page-view count we keep ourselves, whatever you choose above: which page, roughly when, your country, and coarse browser and device type. Logged by our own server as the page is served, with no cookie and nothing that identifies you individually - it tells us a page was read, not who read it.
- Fair usage data for the free tools: a one-way hashed record of your IP address, used only to apply usage limits and prevent abuse. The address itself is not stored.
We do not ask for special category data (such as health, ethnicity or political opinions) anywhere on this website, and you should not send it to us through the contact form.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use your information to:
- Respond to your enquiries and provide our web design services.
- Produce and send you the results of any free tool you use.
- Improve our website, services, and user experience.
- Monitor and analyse website performance through analytics tools.
- Communicate with you when you've given consent (e.g., for email updates).
We will never sell or rent your personal data to third parties. We do not use your data to make any automated decision that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you.
3. Our Lawful Basis for Using Your Information
Under the UK GDPR we have to have a lawful basis for each thing we do with your data. Ours are:
| What we do | Lawful basis | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Reply to an enquiry | Legitimate interests, or steps before a contract | You asked us a question about our services, so answering it is what you would expect. |
| Deliver a project we are engaged for | Contract | We need your details to do the work you have hired us for. |
| Send you the results of a free tool | Consent | You ticked the box asking us to email them. You can withdraw this at any time. |
| Arrange a call you asked to book | Steps before a contract | You asked for the call, so we need your details to hold the time and confirm it with you. |
| Record that a proposal or invoice link was opened | Legitimate interests | So we know a document reached you, rather than chasing you for something you never received. |
| Introduce ourselves to a business by email | Legitimate interests | We contact businesses only, and every such email says where we got the details and how to stop. |
| Send marketing emails | Consent | Only if you ticked the separate optional box. Never a condition of anything else. |
| Analytics (Google Analytics) | Consent | It sets cookies on your device, so we ask first. Declining changes nothing else about how the site works for you. |
| Cookies needed to serve the page | Legitimate interests (exempt from consent) | The site cannot be delivered securely without them. |
| Fair usage limits on the free tools | Legitimate interests | Keeping a free public tool available and stopping it being abused. |
| Keep business and accounting records | Legal obligation | Required by UK tax and company law. |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object. Section 12 explains how.
4. Cookies and Analytics
If you accept our cookie banner, we use Google Analytics to count page views and see which pages are read, using cookies it sets on your device. If you decline, or do not answer, none of this runs and nothing is set - the site works identically either way.
Separately, and whatever you choose above, our own server keeps a basic count of pages served - which page, roughly when, and coarse location, browser and device information - as it answers each request. Nothing is stored on your device to do this, so it is not something the cookie banner covers, in the same way a shop counting people through its door is not the same as asking for your name.
Our Cookie Policy lists everything this site can store, what each item does, how long it lasts, and how to change your mind at any time from the "Cookie preferences" control that stays on the page after you have made a choice.
5. Free Tools
Our website offers a number of free tools: an SEO and AEO audit, a schema markup generator, a title and meta description checker, a competitor page comparison and a keyword ideas tool. When you use any of them, we collect and process:
- The website address or search phrase you give us, together with the results we produce from it. For the competitor comparison this includes the competitor addresses you enter.
- Your name and email address, and for the audit tool your own website address if you choose to give it, at the point you ask us to send you the full results.
- Whether you ticked the optional box asking for occasional marketing emails. That box is always separate from the one used to send you your results, and leaving it unticked has no effect on the results you receive.
- A one-way hashed record of your IP address, used only to apply fair usage limits and prevent abuse of the tools. We do not store the IP address itself.
We use this information to produce and send you your results, and, where you have asked us to, to follow up with you about them. We store the results so that the link we email you keeps working, and so that we can see how the tools are being used.
The tools only request pages that are already publicly available on the internet, and will not fetch private, internal or local network addresses. When we fetch a page we identify ourselves as WebOwsSEOAudit. Before fetching an address you give us, we look it up using Cloudflare's public DNS service, so that we can refuse an address that points somewhere private.
Three of the tools ask another company for part of the answer, and in each case we send only what you typed and nothing that identifies you. The audit asks Google's PageSpeed Insights how fast the page you submitted loads. The keyword ideas tool asks Google for its own search suggestions, and asks Microsoft, through Bing Webmaster Tools, roughly how often a phrase is searched for. All three requests are made by our server rather than by your browser, so your details are not passed to either company by those pages.
When we email you your results we include a link to a page showing the same results. That link contains a long random code and is not listed in search engines, but anyone you forward it to will be able to see the results. Treat it as you would the email itself.
The competitor comparison stores the competitor addresses you enter and information read from those pages. That is usually business information rather than personal data, but if you enter a page belonging to a named individual, please only use addresses that are already publicly published.
You can ask us to delete your records from any of these tools at any time using the contact details in section 14.
6. Booking a Call
You can book a call with us from our Book a Call page. When you do, we collect your name, your email address, the time you asked for, and any phone number or note you choose to add.
A booking is a request rather than a confirmed appointment. We hold the time provisionally, and then either confirm it, suggest a different time, or tell you we cannot make it work. We email you at each of those points. If we suggest a different time, that email contains a link you can use to accept or decline it. The link contains a long random code and is not listed in search engines, but anyone you forward it to will be able to use it, so treat it as you would the email.
Booking a call also creates an entry in our Google Calendar holding your name, your email address and anything you wrote in the note, and adds you to that entry as an attendee, which means Google may send you a calendar invitation as well as our own email. Google acts on our instructions for this, and section 9 lists it with our other providers.
We use this to arrange and hold the call, on the basis that you asked us for it and it is a step towards a possible contract. If the call leads to work, the record becomes part of our client records. If it does not, we remove it in line with section 11.
7. Proposals and Invoices We Send You
When we send you a proposal or an invoice, we send a link to a page showing it rather than an attachment. When that page is opened we record the date it was first opened, the date it was last opened, and how many times. We record nothing about your device, your location or what you did on the page, and we never use it for advertising.
We do this so that we know a document actually reached you. Knowing a proposal was opened is the difference between chasing you for something you never received and leaving you alone to read it. As with the tools, the link contains a long random code and is not listed in search engines, and anyone you forward it to can open it and will be counted as an opening.
If you would rather we did not record this for your documents, tell us using the details in section 14 and we will turn it off for you.
8. If We Contacted You First
Sometimes we contact a business that has not contacted us, to introduce what we do. If you have had an email from us out of the blue, this is the section that applies to you. Because we did not get your details from you, data protection law requires us to tell you the following, and we would want to anyway.
Where we got your details: from your business's own public listing on Google Maps, and from the website address published on that listing. Nobody passed your details to us, and we have never bought a list.
What we hold: your business name, its published website address, the public contact address we found for it, and our own notes about what we saw on the site.
Why we are allowed to: our legitimate interest in offering a service to businesses we believe it would suit. We contact businesses rather than private individuals. We do not email addresses at consumer mail providers, because those usually belong to sole traders, and where we cannot tell which we are looking at we do not send at all.
How to stop it: reply and say so, or use the link in the email. Either one stops it for good. We keep a record of the address afterwards for the sole purpose of making sure it is never contacted again.
You can object to this at any time, and we will stop without asking you why. Section 12 sets out that right along with the others you have.
9. Who Else Handles Your Data
We do not sell or rent your data, but we do use a small number of service providers to run the website. They process data on our instructions:
| Provider | What they handle | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Website hosting, our database, and file storage, plus the network that serves and protects the pages and the public DNS service we use to check an address before a tool fetches it | Globally distributed |
| Google Workspace | Sending and receiving our email, including the results and confirmations this site sends you, and the calendar our call bookings are entered into | The United States and other countries |
| Google Analytics | Counts page views and which pages are read, only if you accept our cookie banner | The United States and other countries |
| Google PageSpeed Insights | Measures how quickly a page loads. Our audit tool sends it the address you submitted and nothing about you | The United States and other countries |
| Google Maps and Places | Public business listings, which we search when researching a business to introduce ourselves to. Section 8 explains this | The United States and other countries |
| Microsoft | Bing Webmaster Tools, which tells our keyword tool roughly how often a phrase is searched for. We send the phrase and nothing about you | The United States and other countries |
| Freelancers we bring in | Where a project needs it, part of your project content so a subcontractor can carry out that piece of work. Each one signs a confidentiality and data protection agreement with us before starting | Varies by freelancer: may be outside the UK |
Some of these providers process data outside the UK. Where that happens, the transfer is covered by the safeguards those providers put in place, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. You can ask us for more detail using the contact details in section 14.
We may also disclose information where we are required to by law.
10. Data Storage and Security
We store your data securely and take appropriate technical and organisational measures to prevent unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. Your personal data is stored on secure servers, and we limit access to those who need it to perform their job. The database holding enquiries and tool results is not readable by website visitors: it can only be reached by our own server code and by us.
11. How Long We Keep Your Information
We keep your data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected or to comply with legal requirements. In practice:
| What | How long | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Free tool and audit results, including any name and email attached to them | 24 months from the day you ran it, then deleted automatically | Long enough for the link we emailed you to keep working, and to see how the tools are used. |
| Call bookings, including anything you wrote in the note | Kept while the call is being arranged and for 24 months afterwards if it does not lead to work, then removed | So we know what was discussed if you come back to us. |
| Details of a business we contacted first | 24 months from the last contact, or permanently if you ask us not to contact you again, in which case we keep the address only to honour that | So we do not approach the same business twice, and so an opt-out is never lost. |
| Enquiries and contact records | While you are a client or a live prospect, then reviewed and removed if there has been no contact for 24 months | So we can pick up a conversation where it left off. |
| Marketing consent records | Until you withdraw consent, plus a short period afterwards | So we have a record of what you agreed to and when. |
| Project, invoice and accounting records | Six years after the end of the financial year they relate to | Required by UK tax law. |
You can ask us to delete your data sooner than any of these periods. Section 12 explains how.
12. Your Rights
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you.
- Request correction of inaccurate information.
- Request deletion of your data.
- Object to or restrict processing in certain cases, including where we rely on legitimate interests.
- Receive a copy of data you gave us in a portable, machine-readable format, or ask us to send it to someone else.
- Withdraw consent at any time (if processing is based on consent). Withdrawing consent does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it.
To exercise these rights, please contact us using the details below. We will respond within one month. There is no charge, and you do not have to give a reason.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection regulator. You can reach the ICO at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first, but you are entitled to go to the ICO at any time.
13. Third-Party Links
Our website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those external sites, so we recommend reviewing their privacy policies separately.
14. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please contact us at:
WebOws Design Limited (company number 13440631)
Registered office: Brambles, Lower Wall Road, West Hythe, Hythe, England, CT21 4NR
Email: owen@webowsdesign.co.uk
Website: www.webowsdesign.co.uk
15. Updates to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal reasons.
The most recent version will always be available on this page.
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