Privacy Policy
Last updated 31 August 2026
Semantic SEO is a WordPress plugin. It runs on your own server, reads your own database, and connects to your own Google Search Console account. This page says exactly what that means, feature by feature, rather than in general terms.
The short version
Everything the plugin measures is stored in your WordPress database, on your own hosting. We do not receive your search queries, your URLs, your traffic figures, or the findings the plugin produces. The only thing that touches our servers is the Search Console connection itself, and that is described in full below.
What leaves your server, and when
| Feature | What leaves |
|---|---|
| Reading your site | Nothing. Posts, pages, menus and internal links are read from your own database. |
| Health, Navigation, Links, 404 recovery | Nothing. All computed locally. |
| Ledger and undo history | Nothing. Stored in your database. |
| Search Console | Requests go to Google, authenticated with your own token. See below. |
| Optional third party keys | If you add a Serper, Keywords Everywhere or model provider key, those features send data directly to that provider using your key. Nothing passes through us. |
| To us | Token exchange and refresh only. Nothing else. |
The Search Console connection
A distributed WordPress plugin cannot safely ship a Google client secret, because anybody who
downloads the plugin can read its files. So the OAuth exchange runs through a small service we
operate at auth.semanticseoanalysis.com.
That service does three things and nothing else:
- Sends you to Google's consent screen.
- Exchanges the code Google returns for an access token and a refresh token.
- Exchanges a refresh token for a new access token when the old one expires.
It does not log your queries, your URLs or your findings. It does not store results. It runs no
analytics. It does not keep your refresh token. The token is handed back to
your site and stored there, encrypted with a key derived from your own WordPress salts, which
live in your wp-config.php rather than your database.
For the few seconds between Google's redirect and your site collecting the result, the tokens sit in temporary storage under a single use code that expires after two minutes and is deleted the moment it is read. That exists so credentials never travel in a URL, where they would be written into web server logs and browser history.
What we ask Google for
One scope: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/webmasters.readonly. It is read only.
The plugin cannot change anything in your Search Console account, submit sitemaps, request
indexing, or add or remove users. We do not request any other Google scope.
From that scope the plugin reads search performance data: the pages and queries your site appears for, with impressions, clicks, average position and click through rate. That is what produces the impressions figure every finding is ranked by.
Limited Use
Semantic SEO's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Specifically, we do not:
- transfer this data to anybody, except as necessary to provide the plugin's own features on your site;
- use it for advertising, or serve advertisements of any kind;
- sell it, or allow humans to read it, except with your explicit consent for a support request you have opened, for security purposes, or where required by law.
What we store about you
If you buy a licence, we hold what any seller must: your email address, the sites the licence is active on, and your purchase history. Licence checks send your licence key and your site's domain, and nothing else. No content, no keys, no traffic data.
The free plugin does not require an account. If you never connect Search Console and never buy a licence, we hold nothing about you at all.
Ending it
You can disconnect at any time, in two independent ways:
- In the plugin, at Settings then Search Console, choose Disconnect. The token is deleted from your site. We never had a copy.
- At myaccount.google.com/permissions, revoke access. This works even if the plugin has been deleted.
Everything the plugin already measured stays in your database, because it is yours. Removing the plugin does not revert changes you approved on your pages, and the plugin says so before you uninstall it.
Children
This is a tool for website operators. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect data from them.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what leaves your server, the date above changes and the plugin's own Data and privacy screen changes with it. That screen is generated from the same list as this page, so the two cannot drift apart.
Contact
Questions about this policy: [email protected]