General
1. dotSearch will provide SEO Services only where an agreement is provided either by email, mail or fax.
2. dotSearch will not be liable for any costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the unavailability of any site, servers, software or any material provided by its agents.
3. You acknowledge that as Search Engines change their ranking algorithms on a regular basis, and new and traditional competitors (competing websites) enter the market and also change their strategies and tactics (to challenge and gain competitive advantage), it is necessary for continual monthly maintenance to be in place for dotSearch to obtain and retain rankings.
4. Both on-site and off-site SEO techniques require website updates from time to time, therefore, dotSearch requires FTP access to the Client’s website or arrangements put in place to manage site changes; alternatively, the client agrees to undertake the site changes, as required from time to time by dotSearch, in a responsible and timely manner.
5. Any unethical techniques used within the construction or maintenance of the website may result in dotSearch serving immediate notice without refund of any fees paid.
6. dotSearch is not responsible for any adverse affects on search engine rankings or additional costs incurred if the client has engaged in poor maintenance of the website or the removal of any SEO changes made to the website by or at the request of dotSearch, e.g. upload of old version of software by mistake.
7. dotSearch reserves the right to revise its policies and Services at any time without notice.
Clients’ Obligations
1. The Client has not employed the services of another SEO or online marketing company to manage Natural Listings or related traffic generation services except for Pay Per Click (PPC).
2. The client has not created any duplicate sites, redirects or doorway pages. If duplicate sites have been previously published, the client must inform dotSearch before work commences.
3. The client has not requested or exchanged links with link farms or undertaken any spamming techniques which may harm the website's ranking with Google.
4. No link exchanges must take place without prior consultation and agreement from dotSearch.
5. To make payment as agreed and in accordance with the terms set out below.
dotSearch Obligations
1. SEO activities will be conducted to the best of our ability within the budgets assigned.
2. We will operate strictly within the protocol parameters expected by the major search engines Google.com / Google.co.uk / Yahoo and MSN; however our primary target will be Google.
3. We aim to achieve a Top 10 ranking on Google for all agreed key phrases.
4. For established sites we would expect to meet Top 10 positions for the agreed search terms within 3-6 months of the contract date.
5. New sites (those set up within the past 12 months) may take up to 12 months before achieving Top 10 rankings.
6. PPC budgets MUST be paid in advance. dotSearch reserves the right to abort any PPC campaigns without notice where payment is not received in advance or not at all.
7. It is the Client’s responsibility to ensure payment is received in advance to support PPC activity. Failure to comply will result in cancellation of PPC activity until such time as payment is received.
Disclaimers and limitations on liability
1. dotSearch shall not be responsible for URLs dropped or excluded by a search engine for any reason.
2. dotSearch shall not be responsible for any non execution of PPC campaigns however this may occur. This includes; failure by dotSearch to complete tasks and/or the failure of search engines to execute a campaign correctly or at all for whatever reason.
3. dotSearch does not accept responsibility nor offer any compensation for ‘Click Fraud’.
4. dotSearch does not warrant that Customers' URLs will achieve a favourable position, or any position, within a search engine.
5. dotSearch does NOT guarantee rankings or traffic volumes.
6. dotSearch does not warrant or represent that the results, or the use of the results, made available by dotSearch, or from any third party, will be correct, accurate, timely or reliable and the Customer may not place any reliance on such information in any circumstances.
7. dotSearch is not responsible for any costs incurred, or compensation or loss of earnings due to the work carried out on behalf of the client.
8. The Client expressly agrees that use of the dotSearch Services provided hereunder is at the Client’s sole risk. These Services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis.
dotSearch expressly disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including without limitation any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
9. Notwithstanding the security precautions taken against disclosure of information, there are certain conditions that exist on the Internet generally which are outside dotSearch’ control and could result in a breach of security. Accordingly, dotSearch cannot guarantee that Your account Service data information will be free from corruption or piracy. You hereby expressly waive any claim against dotSearch arising out of the loss of data through corruption, piracy, and breach of security or for any other reason that is not based on intentional or grossly negligent actions of dotSearch.
10. To the maximum extent allowed by law, dotSearch, its members, subsidiaries, affiliates, service providers, licensors, officers, directors and employees shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages (no matter how they arise, including negligence), or for interrupted communications, lost data or lost profits, arising out of or in connection with the Services provided hereunder. Further, dotSearch will not have any liability for any losses arising as a result of Services not being operational or accessible.
11. Whilst every endeavour will be made to ensure that website changes and any scripts or programs are free of errors, dotSearch does not accept responsibility for any losses incurred due to malfunction of the data or scripts provided for the website or any part of it or its SEO activities carried out in the pursuit of search engine rankings and traffic generation.
12. These terms and conditions represent the entire agreement and you may not place any reliance on any other communication with dotSearch from its officers and agents howsoever received in the provision and outcome of these services.
Payment of Accounts
Our first invoice will be raised upon the receipt of a confirmation with payment due immediately; work will commence upon receipt of payment.
Invoices will be raised monthly thereafter with payment due WITHIN 15 DAYS of the date of invoice.
PPC payments are required IN ADVANCE of actual spend with the PPC search engine whether or not an invoice has been issued by dotSearch.
Direct Debit collection can be arranged or BACS payments accepted.
Failure to meet payment demands may result in the cancellation of Services and legal action taken to recover our invoiced charges and legal costs.
dotSearch is a trading name of dotMailer, part of the dotDigital Group plc.