Terms of Service

1. What the Service does — and does not do

IndexMachine is a URL indexing service. You submit URLs for pages you own or are authorised to manage; we process each submitted URL through our indexing pipeline so that it is more likely to be discovered and crawled, and we record and independently verify each search-engine crawl of that URL (see Section 5) so that you have an auditable record of the result. Everything is managed from your dashboard or the API.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Service does not: install anything on your site; modify your site, its content, or its markup; place links to your site anywhere; or interact with any search engine’s ranking systems or search results. Whether a page is crawled, indexed, or ranked is decided solely by the search engine, and no such outcome is promised by these Terms.

2. Eligibility & accounts

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract. You are responsible for the accuracy of your account details, for keeping your password and API keys secret, and for all activity under your account. Notify us promptly of any unauthorised use.

3. Acceptable use

You may only submit URLs for pages you own or are otherwise authorised to submit, whose content is lawful and genuine, and which you are willing to have crawled and indexed. You agree that you will not use the Service:

• for unlawful, infringing, deceptive, malicious, or adult/illegal content;
• to submit URLs for third-party properties you do not own or control;
• for content that does not comply with the published guidelines of the search engines you want it to reach;
• to attempt to overload, reverse-engineer, resell, or circumvent the Service, its rate limits, or its abuse protections;
• to share, scrape, or abuse API keys, or to exceed the documented API limits.

We may throttle, suspend, or terminate accounts that breach this section, and may remove URLs at our discretion, with or without notice. The Service is intended for one thing: helping the owner of a legitimate page get that page in front of search engines sooner, and showing them proof of the result.

4. Credits, pricing & refunds

The Service is prepaid with credits. One credit is priced at USD $0.01 and pays for the processing of one URL in the Standard tier; the Priority and Maximum tiers allocate more processing per URL and consume more credits, as shown in the app. A credit pays for that processing and for the verified crawl record we keep for you — not for a crawl, an indexing decision, a ranking, or any other outcome from a search engine. The minimum purchase is USD $10. New accounts receive a limited number of free starter credits. Credits are consumed when a URL is added and, once spent, are non-refundable except where required by law. Unused credits can be refunded in full within 14 days of purchase — see the Refund Policy for the full terms. Unused purchased credits do not expire. Prices, packages, and bonus features (including experimental Bing coverage) may change; changes do not affect credits already spent.

5. Crawl verification & logs

We validate each crawler by reverse-DNS and forward-confirm, and only verified crawls are reported to you. We log those crawls (time, crawler type, IP, user-agent, and the URL) so you can independently check them in your dashboard. We do not guarantee that any URL will be crawled or indexed by any search engine, or that any ranking, traffic, or indexing outcome will result — search engines are third parties outside our control, and nothing in the Service is capable of compelling them.

6. Availability & changes

The Service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service, and may update these Terms; material changes take effect when posted with a new “last updated” date, and continued use constitutes acceptance.

7. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, IndexMachine is not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for loss of rankings, traffic, revenue, data, or goodwill arising from your use of the Service. Our total aggregate liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us in the three months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

8. Termination

You may stop using the Service and close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these Terms or that we reasonably believe create risk or legal exposure. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including payment, disclaimers, and limitation of liability) will survive.

9. Privacy & cookies

Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

10. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email us at [email protected].