Terms and conditions

1. About these Terms

These Terms and Conditions govern use of the Crawl Nine website and, where incorporated into a proposal, quotation, statement of work, order, invoice or other agreement, the services supplied by Crawl Nine.

Crawl Nine is operated by:

Crawlnine

Trading as: Crawl Nine / CRWL9

Email: hello@crawlnine.com

Our services are primarily intended for businesses and people purchasing in connection with a trade, business, craft or profession.

If you deal with us as a consumer, mandatory consumer rights may apply in addition to these Terms and will take precedence where they cannot legally be excluded. UK consumer terms must be fair and transparent, and businesses cannot contract out of mandatory consumer protections (GOV.UK).

2. Website information

We take reasonable care over information published on the Crawl Nine website, but general website content is provided for information and marketing purposes.

It does not constitute legal, financial, regulatory or other professional advice.

Descriptions of services, examples, indicative timelines and published prices do not by themselves create a contract.

A binding service agreement is formed only when the relevant scope, price and other terms have been agreed in the manner stated in the proposal, quotation, statement of work or invoice.

3. Our services

Crawl Nine services may include website strategy, design and development, performance work, SEO, AEO, GEO, search and AI visibility work, website support, technical consulting and paid AI advertising management.

The exact service, deliverables, exclusions, timetable and fees for each engagement will be set out in the relevant proposal, quotation or statement of work.

If there is a conflict between these Terms and an expressly agreed project document, the expressly agreed project document takes priority for that engagement.

4. Scope and changes

The agreed price covers the agreed scope.

Work requested outside that scope may require a separate quotation or change to the project price and timetable.

We will not knowingly add paid work to a project without communicating the change and obtaining approval.

Additional pages, major redesigns, ecommerce, custom applications, complex integrations, migrations, custom automation and other substantial functionality may be separately scoped even where they relate to an existing project.

5. Client responsibilities

You are responsible for providing the information, access, approvals, content and decisions reasonably required for us to perform the work.

You must ensure that information and materials you provide are accurate and that you have the necessary rights, licences and permissions for us to use them.

You remain responsible for obtaining your own legal, regulatory, professional or compliance advice where your business requires it.

Delays in providing access, content, approvals or feedback may affect delivery dates.

6. Timelines

Any delivery period described as “usual”, “expected”, “estimated” or similar is an estimate rather than a guaranteed completion date unless we expressly agree otherwise in writing.

For example, a standard Build may usually take approximately two to four weeks, but the actual period depends on scope, integrations, content, approvals, technical issues and client feedback.

We are not responsible for delays caused by matters outside our reasonable control or by dependencies controlled by the client or a third party.

7. Fees and payment

Fees will be stated in the applicable quotation, proposal, order or invoice.

Published website prices marked “from” are starting prices, not guaranteed prices for every project.

Any applicable taxes will be dealt with as stated on the invoice.

Payment dates and any deposit or instalment structure will be stated in the relevant project documents.

For business-to-business debts that become overdue, we reserve the right to charge statutory interest and recovery costs where permitted by applicable law. UK statutory interest on qualifying late commercial payments is currently 8% plus the Bank of England base rate (GOV.UK).

We may pause work where an undisputed invoice remains overdue.

8. Third-party costs

Unless expressly included, third-party costs are separate from Crawl Nine’s fees.

These may include domains, hosting, software subscriptions, advertising spend, stock assets, premium services, external APIs or other third-party products.

Where possible, important third-party accounts should be held in the client’s name.

For paid advertising services, media spend is separate from Crawl Nine’s management fee and is normally paid directly by the advertiser to the advertising platform.

9. Search, AI visibility and advertising results

Search engines, AI systems and advertising platforms are controlled by third parties.

Crawl Nine does not guarantee:

• a particular search-engine ranking;
• a particular level of traffic, leads or sales;
• that a website will be cited, retrieved or recommended by an AI system;
• that a business will appear inside a particular AI-generated answer;
• campaign approval;
• a particular advertising cost, return on ad spend or commercial result; or
• continued access to any third-party feature, crawler, platform or advertising product.

We will perform the agreed work professionally, but external algorithms, policies, auctions and platform behaviour are outside our control.

10. Discover and ongoing services

Where a service is ongoing, its billing period, minimum commitment if any, cancellation procedure and included scope will be stated in the applicable proposal or service agreement.

We do not assume that every activity will be performed every month. Ongoing work may be prioritised according to the evidence, technical condition of the site and opportunities identified.

A change in a third-party search engine, AI system or platform may require the work or priorities to change.

11. Amplify and paid advertising

Paid AI advertising is separate from earned search or AI visibility.

Payment for advertising does not purchase or influence an AI-generated recommendation or organic answer.

Where Crawl Nine manages an advertising account, the client remains responsible for its media budget, business claims, regulated-industry requirements and final approval of campaigns where approval is requested.

Advertising platforms decide eligibility, approval, auction outcomes and delivery under their own terms and policies.

12. Intellectual property

Unless otherwise agreed, each party keeps ownership of intellectual property it owned before the project.

Once all amounts due for a project have been paid, the client will own the final bespoke website content, design and deliverables created specifically for that client to the extent stated in the applicable project agreement.

Crawl Nine retains ownership of its pre-existing materials, methods, internal systems, processes, know-how, generic code, reusable components, utilities and other tools that were not created exclusively for that client.

Where those retained elements form part of a deliverable, the client receives the rights reasonably necessary to use the completed deliverable for its intended purpose.

Third-party materials remain subject to their own licences.

13. Client materials and intellectual-property claims

You confirm that you are entitled to provide any text, photographs, logos, trademarks, databases, files, software or other materials supplied to us.

You are responsible for claims arising from materials or instructions you provide where we could not reasonably have known that their use was unlawful or infringed another person’s rights.

We may refuse to use material that we reasonably believe is unlawful, misleading, infringing or unsafe.

14. Confidentiality

Each party will take reasonable steps to protect confidential business information received from the other in connection with a project and will use it only for legitimate purposes connected with the relationship.

This does not apply to information that is already public, was lawfully known before disclosure, is independently developed, or must be disclosed by law.

15. Data protection

Each party is responsible for complying with data-protection law applicable to the personal information it controls.

Our handling of personal information as controller is described in our Privacy Policy.

Where a project requires Crawl Nine to process personal information solely on behalf of a client, appropriate data-processing terms may be agreed where required.

16. Security and access

You should provide access to websites, hosting, analytics, advertising and other systems using secure methods where available.

We may require separate user accounts rather than shared passwords.

You should remove or rotate Crawl Nine’s access after an engagement where continuing access is no longer required.

Neither party should intentionally send passwords or other security credentials through insecure channels where a safer method is available.

17. Cancellation and termination

Cancellation and termination rights for paid services are governed by the applicable proposal or service agreement.

Where an engagement is expressly described as month-to-month, it may be cancelled in accordance with the notice or billing provisions agreed for that service.

On termination, the client remains responsible for fees properly due for work already performed and non-cancellable third-party costs properly incurred.

Where fees have been prepaid for work not yet performed, their treatment will follow the agreed proposal, service schedule and applicable law.

Termination does not affect rights or obligations that arose before termination.

18. Suspension

We may suspend services where reasonably necessary because of serious non-payment, unlawful instructions, security risks, abuse, failure to provide required cooperation or circumstances that make continuing the work unlawful.

Where reasonably possible, we will tell you before suspending the service and give you an opportunity to resolve the issue.

19. Third-party services and links

Our website and services may use or link to third-party platforms.

We do not control those services and are not responsible for changes to their availability, policies, pricing, algorithms, security, terms or functionality.

Use of those platforms may be subject to separate agreements between you and the relevant provider.

20. Website availability

We may change, suspend or withdraw parts of our website without guaranteeing continuous availability.

We do not guarantee that the website will always be error-free or available without interruption.

You must not deliberately interfere with the website, attempt unauthorised access, misuse our free tools, introduce malicious code, overwhelm our systems or use automated requests in a way that disrupts the service.

21. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where doing so would be unlawful, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

Subject to that, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party will be liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from an engagement.

Unless a project agreement states otherwise, Crawl Nine’s total aggregate liability arising from a particular engagement will not exceed the total fees paid or payable to Crawl Nine for that engagement during the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

22. Events outside reasonable control

Neither party is responsible for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, provided the affected party takes reasonable steps to reduce the effect of the event and resumes performance when reasonably possible.

This may include major infrastructure failures, widespread internet outages, third-party platform failure, government action, natural disasters or similar events.

23. Governing law

Where mandatory laws cannot lawfully be excluded, those mandatory rights continue to apply to the extent required.

24. Changes to these Terms

We may update these website Terms from time to time.

Changes do not retrospectively alter an existing signed or agreed project contract unless the parties agree to the change or the existing contract expressly provides otherwise.

The latest website version will show the date it was last updated.

25. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to: hello@crawlnine.com

Crawl Nine is a trading name of Crawlnine.