Privacy Policy
SearchLane · web app, MCP server and the Website SEO Checker Chrome extension · Last updated: October 22, 2026
This policy covers all of SearchLane: the web app at searchlane.app/app, the MCP server, the free tools on searchlane.app and the Website SEO Checker Chrome extension.
In short. The SEO check runs inside your browser and never sends page content or page addresses to us. We collect anonymous statistics about how the extension's own buttons are used — you can turn it off in one click. The optional Rankings feature uses our server: if you sign in and click “Show Google rankings & AI Overviews”, we receive your email address and the address of the page you chose to check. The website audit checks a whole site only when you start it; a saved report holds page addresses and the issues found, never page text. We never sell data.
1. The free SEO check — stays in your browser
To show the score badge in the corner of each page, the extension reads the page you open: title, meta tags, headings, links, images and structured data. When you open the full report it also reads the visible text to find frequent phrases. All of this happens locally in your browser; none of it is sent to us or to anyone else. You can turn the badge off in the extension settings, or hide it on any site with “×”; it is never shown in apps such as Gmail, Google Docs or Slack.
When you open the full report, the extension also requests this site's robots.txt and sitemap,
and the page itself once more to read its HTTP status. If you click “Check links”, it requests each link found on
the page to see whether it works. All these requests go from your browser directly to the websites concerned —
not to us — and their results stay in the report.
To show the HTTP status and the X-Robots-Tag header, the extension requests the same page
once more from the website itself, the same way your browser loaded it. That request goes to the website you are
viewing, not to us.
Copy and download (CSV, Markdown) create the report on your device.
To show how a page changed since your last check (“SEO +4 · GEO +20”), the extension keeps a short history in your browser's extension storage: the page address, the two scores, the date and which checks failed — for up to 500 pages, never more than ten dates each. If you enter your own site on the welcome page, that domain is kept there too, so the badge can show your site's change over the past week. This history never leaves your browser; uninstalling the extension deletes it.
1a. Website audit — only when you start it
When you click “Check whole site”, the extension opens a tab that requests pages of that one website — its robots.txt, sitemap and up to 50 pages (100 or 500 when signed in) — straight from your browser, two at a time, following robots.txt. The pages are read in your browser. Without an account the report stays in that tab and nothing is sent to us.
If you are signed in, the finished report is saved on our server so you can open it by link: the site address, the addresses of checked pages, their HTTP status, title, word count, response time and the issues found. Page text and your cookies are never sent. Anyone with the link can open the report, so share it only with people you choose. Free reports are deleted after 30 days, Pro reports after one year.
The website audit form on our site works without the extension: our server requests up to 25 pages of the site you enter, as the WebsiteSEOChecker-Audit crawler. To limit it to two checks a day we store a one-way hash of your IP address with the report, not the address itself. These reports are also deleted after 30 days.
2. Rankings — optional, requires sign-in
The Rankings tab shows which Google searches bring visitors to a page. It needs data we buy from a provider, so it works through our server and requires an account.
| What we receive | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | To identify your account and, if you sign in by email, to send a one-time code and sign-in link. These emails are sent through Mailjet, an email service in the EU, which receives only your address and the email itself | When you sign in |
| If you sign in with Google: your Google account email and name, as provided by Google | To create and identify your account. We do not get access to your Google data, contacts or Gmail | When you click “Continue with Google” |
| Address (URL) of the page you check | To look up its Google rankings | Only when you click “Show Google rankings & AI Overviews” |
| The page address and three search queries: its top 3 queries from Rankings or, if Google has none yet, its top keywords from the Content tab | To ask ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity these queries and see whether they cite the page | Only when you click “Check top 3 queries in ChatGPT, AI Mode and Perplexity” |
| Credits: purchases, grants and each charge (amount, feature, time) | To show your balance and history and to bill usage in the SearchLane web app | When you buy credits or use a paid feature |
| Time and number of checks, cost of each check | To apply the daily limit and keep our costs in check | With each check |
| Clicks on the Pro offer and hitting the daily limit | To understand whether a paid plan is worth building | When it happens |
We do not receive the content of any page, your browsing history, or anything about pages you do not explicitly check.
To get the rankings, the checked page address is sent to our data provider DataForSEO. Results are stored on our server for up to 7 days so that repeated checks of the same page do not cost again; this cache contains ranking data about the page, not information about you.
For the AI search check, the queries (not the page address) are sent to DataForSEO, which asks ChatGPT with web search, Google AI Mode and Perplexity. Each answer to a query is cached for 24 hours and shared between users, since it does not depend on who asks. The result of your check — which sources each AI search cited — is stored with your account so you can see it again after closing the extension window.
3. Feedback
If you rate the extension 1–3 stars in its window, you can send us a message. We receive the text, the rating, an email address only if you enter one, the extension version and interface language — and your account identifier if you are signed in. We do not receive the page you were on. Ratings of 4–5 stars just open the Chrome Web Store review page; nothing is sent to us.
4. Payments
Pro plan and credit payments are processed by Creem, which acts as the merchant of record. We never see or store card details. We receive from Creem only what is needed to activate your plan: your account identifier, customer and subscription identifiers, and the paid period. To let you manage or cancel your subscription, we pass your customer identifier to Creem to open its customer portal.
5. Anonymous usage statistics — on by default, one click to turn off
To understand which features help and where people get stuck, the extension sends anonymous events about its own interface: for example “extension installed”, “report opened”, “tab switched”, “report copied”, “icon pinned”, the SEO score as a range (such as 80–89) and the country selected for Rankings. We also record which buttons, tabs and switches you click in the extension’s own screens — by the element’s internal name, never the text of the page you are checking — and script errors in those screens, with addresses removed. Events are tied to a random installation identifier, not to you.
When statistics are on and you open searchlane.app, the extension tells our site this random installation identifier, so that the visit and the installation count as one path (for example, “installed → opened the web app”). The uninstall page receives the same identifier for the same reason. Turn statistics off and neither happens.
Never sent: page addresses, domains, page titles or content, keywords, your browsing history. Events go to PostHog (EU cloud, Frankfurt) with IP addresses discarded and location lookup disabled. If you sign in for Rankings, events from then on are linked to your account so we can see how the paid features are used.
Turn it off any time: extension settings → “Send anonymous usage statistics”. Nothing is sent after that.
If you remove the extension, a page opens asking why. Opening it records the removal; answering is optional. The reason you pick and any comment you type are sent to PostHog together with the extension version and, if statistics were on, the random installation identifier.
5a. Statistics on searchlane.app and in the web app
The website (www.searchlane.app, including the free tools, pricing and the web app at /app) sends usage events to
the same PostHog project: pages viewed, buttons clicked, which free tool was used and whether it worked, where the
visit came from (UTM tags, the ref parameter or the referring site’s domain), the browser language,
time zone and a screen size class (mobile, tablet, desktop), the buttons, links and tabs you click (by their label,
with any domain or email address in it removed), which forms you submit (not what you typed), time on page and how
far you scrolled, and script errors. In the web app we also record actions such as signing in, opening a section,
running a paid lookup, running out of credits, starting a checkout, creating an API key, sharing a report or
downloading a CSV.
No cookies. Visits are counted with a random identifier kept in the browser tab’s session storage; it is deleted when you close the tab and does not link separate visits. If the Website SEO Checker extension is installed with statistics on, the visit is linked to its random installation identifier (section 5). After you sign in, events are linked to your account, and we note once where your first visit came from (the same source data as above). Never sent: the domains, keywords or other text you enter, query strings of page addresses, links of shared reports. IP addresses are discarded and location lookup is disabled.
Session recordings in the web app. When you are signed in to the web app (/app), we record how the page changes and where you move, click and scroll, to find confusing places and fix them; the same data builds click heatmaps. Before anything leaves your browser, everything you type is hidden, domains, email addresses and links in any text are replaced with asterisks, and result tables (keywords, search results, other sites) are hidden entirely. Network requests and the browser console are not recorded. Recordings go to the same PostHog project, use the tab’s session storage (no cookies) and are not made on the website outside /app or for visitors who are not signed in.
Google Analytics. The website’s pages (not the web app at /app) also send page views to Google Analytics 4 to count visits and traffic sources. It is set up without cookies or other storage: it uses the same tab identifier as above, so visits are not linked to each other. Google signals and ad personalization are turned off, and Google Analytics does not log or store IP addresses.
Our servers also record, without cookies: payments and refunds (plan or pack and amount), paid lookups (feature and cost), site audits started, and which AI apps connect to your account through MCP and which tools they call — never the domains or text passed to them. These statistics on the website are always on; they contain nothing that identifies you until you sign in.
5b. Google Search Console and Google Analytics — only if you connect them
In the SearchLane web app you can connect your Google account to see your own Search Console and Google
Analytics 4 reports. We ask Google only for read-only access: webmasters.readonly (Search Console)
and analytics.readonly (Google Analytics), plus your Google email address to show which account is
connected.
What we read, and when. The list of your Search Console properties and Google Analytics accounts and properties, so you can pick the ones for a project; Search Console performance data (search queries, pages, clicks, impressions, click-through rate, average position) and Google Analytics report data (sessions, engaged sessions, key events and revenue from organic search, by landing page, and visits referred by AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Perplexity). Reports are requested from Google only when you open them in the web app and are shown to you only. We never change anything in your Google account.
What we store. An encrypted refresh token (so you don’t have to connect again every hour), your Google email address, the granted permissions and the property you picked for each project. Search Console and Analytics report data is not stored on our servers. The token is used only by our server to fetch the reports you open.
Disconnect any time in the web app (Search Console & Analytics → Disconnect): we revoke the token at Google and delete it together with the stored email address and property choices. Deleting your SearchLane account does the same. You can also remove access in your Google Account under Security → Third-party apps.
Google API Services User Data Policy. SearchLane’ use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Google user data is used only to show you your own reports; it is not sold, not used for advertising, not used to train AI models, not transferred to others except as required to run the service or by law, and not read by people unless you ask us to for support, for security reasons or as required by law. It is not sent to our usage statistics (section 5a).
6. Where data is stored
Account and usage data are stored with Supabase (servers in Frankfurt, Germany, EU). Your sign-in session and settings are kept in your browser’s extension storage and are removed when you sign out or uninstall the extension.
When you are signed in to the extension and open the SearchLane web app from it, the extension asks our server for a one-time sign-in code, so you don't have to sign in again. The code works once and expires after two minutes; we store only its hash with your account for a day. If the web app is already signed in to another account, it asks which one to use.
Abuse limits. To give free credits and free daily checks once per person, we store one-way hashes, never the values themselves: of your normalized email address (kept after you delete the account, so the trial credits are not granted again), of your IP address (an IPv6 network for IPv6) with free checks and the trial claim, and of the address each sign-in email goes to (kept for 30 days to limit sign-in emails to 5 a day).
7. How long we keep it
Account data and check history are kept while your account exists. You can delete your account yourself in the SearchLane web app (Credits & billing → Delete account): the account, projects, reports, saved keywords, API keys, the Google connection and remaining credits are deleted at once; payment records stay with our payment provider. If you have an active subscription, cancel it first. Cached ranking results expire after 7 days, cached AI search answers after 24 hours. Website audit reports are deleted after 30 days (Pro: one year).
8. Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your data, its correction, or its deletion at any time by writing to privacy@searchlane.app. If you are in the EU/EEA or the UK, you also have the right to object to processing and to complain to your local data protection authority. The legal basis for processing is performing the service you requested (Rankings, payments) and our legitimate interest in preventing abuse of the free limit.
9. Chrome Web Store Limited Use
The use of information received from Chrome APIs adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not sell user data, do not use it for advertising or creditworthiness, and do not transfer it except as described above to provide the extension’s features.
10. Children
The extension is a professional tool and is not directed at children under 16.
11. Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes too; material changes are announced in the web app and the extension. Operator: Lenar Amirov, individual entrepreneur registered in Georgia. Support: support@searchlane.app. Contact: privacy@searchlane.app. See also the Terms of Service.