Privacy and cookie policy

Last updated: 27 September 2026

We use the information you supply to create and look after your website, respond to you and administer your order. We do not sell your information, give your private brief to advertisers, or share it with unrelated businesses for their marketing. The service providers and consent-based tracking described below are exceptions to any general description of your information as “private”.

1. Who we are

Sites4Trades provides website design, hosting, maintenance and related services for UK trade businesses.

The data controller is Luke Ranfield, a self-employed sole trader trading as Sites4Trades.com.

Business address: Flat 11, The Ropeworks, Little Peter Street, Manchester, M15 4QJ Privacy enquiries: sales@sites4trades.com

In this policy, “Sites4Trades”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to that data controller.

2. The information we collect

Depending on how you use our website or services, we may collect:

Your name, email address, telephone number and preferred contact method
Your business name, trade, service areas and other business information
Information supplied through an enquiry, callback request or website order form
Website copy, photographs, logos, testimonials, project details, accreditations and other files supplied for your website
Package, order, billing and transaction information
Messages, approvals, feedback and support requests
Technical and usage information such as browser and device type, pages visited, session activity, approximate location, referral information, cookie identifiers and cookie preferences
Advertising and conversion information, where you consent to advertising cookies or similar technologies

Payments are processed by Stripe. Sites4Trades does not receive or store your full payment card details, although we may receive payment status, transaction references, billing details and the email address associated with the payment.

Please only send us personal information about another person if you have permission or another lawful basis to do so and they understand how it will be used. Do not include passwords, payment card details or unnecessary sensitive information in your brief or uploads. We need essential contact and project information to fulfil an order; without it we may be unable to build your website.

3. How and why we use your information

We use personal information to:

Respond to enquiries and callback requests
Provide quotes and take steps requested before entering into a contract
Process orders and provide purchased services
Plan, design, build, launch, host, maintain and update customer websites
Contact customers for content, feedback, approval, support, renewals and other necessary service-related matters
Keep payment, accounting and business records
Maintain the security and reliability of our website and services
Understand how our website performs and improve it
Measure advertising effectiveness, where the required consent has been given
Establish, exercise or defend legal claims and comply with legal obligations

Our lawful bases are:

Contract: where information is needed to take steps at your request or provide the service you purchased
Legitimate interests: where reasonably necessary to operate, secure and improve the business, provide customer support, maintain accurate service records or protect our legal rights, provided those interests do not override your rights
Legal obligation: where we must keep or disclose information to comply with the law
Consent: for non-essential analytics, advertising cookies and similar tracking technologies, and any other activity where consent is required

You can withdraw consent at any time. This will not affect processing that took place before consent was withdrawn.

Routine service emails about an active order or customer service are not marketing messages. We will only send promotional emails where we have the required consent or another valid permission under applicable electronic marketing rules, and we will provide a clear way to opt out.

Your brief, customer records and unpublished files are private. We do not sell, rent or pass them to unrelated businesses. We use the following providers where needed to deliver the service:

Hostinger: hosts this website and supports our form and email services. Form notifications may contain your contact details and brief answers.
MEGA: provides private S4 storage for uploaded images and brief files, and cloud synchronisation or backup for our working project files.
Stripe: processes payments and subscriptions and provides order and payment information to us.
Repository hosting providers: may store website code and assets in private project repositories. Private briefs, credentials and customer records are not intended for public repositories.
Google Analytics and Umami Cloud: receive website usage information when you allow analytics.
Meta: receives browsing and advertising-measurement information when you allow advertising tracking.

We also keep working copies of briefs, assets and customer contact records on our own devices. Access to private project material is restricted to providing and administering your service. We do not automatically send brief answers, uploaded photographs or customer contact details to Google Analytics, Umami or Meta Pixel.

When you approve your website for launch, the business information, photographs, reviews and other content agreed for publication become publicly available on that website. Visitors and search engines may view, copy or index them. This does not make the rest of your private brief public. We will ask before using non-public project material or your testimonial in our own marketing.

We may disclose limited information where legally required, or to professional advisers where necessary for accounting, a dispute or protecting legal rights.

Processing outside the UK

Some providers operate internationally and may process information outside the UK, including in the European Economic Area and the United States. Where a restricted transfer is involved, appropriate protection is required, such as UK adequacy regulations or approved contractual safeguards, together with any required assessment. Contact sales@sites4trades.com for details of the providers and safeguards relevant to your information, or to request a copy of applicable safeguards.

5. Cookies, pixels and similar technologies

Cookies are small files stored on a device. Pixels, scripts, link identifiers and similar technologies can also recognise a browser or device, record activity or connect a visit with an advertising campaign.

Strictly necessary technologies

These are used for functions such as security, form operation, remembering privacy choices and providing a requested service. Where the law permits, they may operate without consent because the website cannot provide the relevant function without them.

Google Analytics

With your consent, we use Google Analytics to understand how visitors find and use our website. Google Analytics may receive information such as pages visited, session activity, approximate location, browser and device information, referral information and cookie or similar identifiers. Google Analytics uses first-party cookies, including _ga cookies, to distinguish users and sessions. We do not intentionally send names, email addresses or other directly identifying contact details to Google Analytics.

Google Analytics remains inactive until you allow analytics. Our integration disables Google Signals and advertising personalisation. You can change your choice using Cookie settings. See Google’s Privacy Policy.

Umami and locally hosted fonts

With analytics consent, Umami Cloud measures pages viewed, referring sites, browser and device types and approximate location. Umami does not use tracking cookies. Our integration excludes URL query strings and fragments from Umami page reporting. See Umami’s privacy information. We host fonts on our own website, so displaying them does not contact Google Fonts.

Your choices and storage durations

The banner offers Accept all, Reject all and Manage preferences. Analytics and advertising choices are separate and off by default. We remember your choice in local storage for 180 days. The PHP session cookie supports secure forms for your browser session. Google Analytics _ga cookies can last up to two years, and Meta _fbp and _fbc cookies up to 90 days. Providers may refresh these durations on later visits.

Use Cookie settings in the footer to change or withdraw consent. We remove accessible tracking cookies and reload the page when withdrawing consent to stop previously loaded scripts. Tracking is disabled on contact, checkout and private brief pages. No optional trackers load when JavaScript is disabled.

Meta advertising measurement

With advertising consent, Meta Pixel records page views on our public marketing pages to help measure visits from adverts and improve advertising. Meta may receive the page URL, referral information, IP address, browser and device information and cookie identifiers, and may associate this with a Meta account. Our current integration sends page-view events; it does not send purchase events or form answers and does not enable automatic advanced matching. See Meta’s Privacy Policy.

We will not activate Meta Pixel, Google Analytics or other non-essential tracking technologies on a device before the user has made an affirmative choice. Rejecting analytics or advertising cookies will not prevent anyone from using the core website or buying a service.

Users can accept, reject or change their choices at any time using the Cookie settings control on the website. Cookie lifetimes and the providers currently in use will be shown in that control and kept under review.

6. How long we keep information

We keep personal information only for as long as needed for the purposes described in this policy.

Enquiries that do not become customers: normally up to 90 days after the last meaningful contact, unless the person requests earlier deletion or there is a genuine reason to keep it longer
Active customers: contact details, service communications, website materials and project records are kept for as long as needed to provide the ongoing service
Upload staging: we may remove files from MEGA S4 after downloading them and confirming our working copies and backup. Removing an upload from S4 does not delete the working copy used to build and maintain your website.
After cancellation: we normally delete or anonymise ordinary project materials and contact records within 30 days of the service ending, unless needed to complete a requested handover or for one of the exceptions below. This cleanup is managed by us, not an automatic timer on the upload form.
Payment, invoice, tax and accounting records: kept for the period required by law, even where this is longer than 30 days
Complaints, disputes and legal claims: relevant information may be kept for as long as reasonably necessary to resolve the matter or protect legal rights
Backups: deleted information may remain temporarily in secured backups until those backups are overwritten through the normal backup cycle and will not be restored for ordinary business use
Analytics and advertising records: storage depends on the provider’s account settings and processing purposes, not just the lifetime of a browser cookie. Withdrawing consent stops future tracking by this site but does not automatically erase records already collected. Contact us for retention details or an erasure request; provider privacy links above explain their own processing. Anonymous aggregate statistics may be retained without identifying you.

When information is no longer required, we delete it securely or anonymise it so that it can no longer identify an individual.

7. Your data protection rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:

Ask for a copy of your personal information
Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information
Ask us to delete information
Ask us to restrict how information is used
Object to certain uses of information
Receive information you supplied in a portable format
Withdraw consent at any time where processing relies on consent

These rights depend on the circumstances and lawful basis for processing. To make a request, email sales@sites4trades.com. We may need to confirm your identity. We normally respond within one month; if the law permits more time, we will explain why. We do not use your brief to make solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects on you.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Information is available at ico.org.uk, although we would appreciate the opportunity to address the concern first.

8. Security

We securely store website copy, photographs, logos, testimonials, project details and other materials supplied by customers where necessary to design, build, host, maintain and update their website. Access is limited to people and service providers who need the information to deliver the service.

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information. These include limiting access, using reputable providers for payments, hosting and storage, and keeping systems and access controls under review. No internet-based service can be guaranteed completely secure.

9. Children

Our services are intended for business customers and are not directed at children. Please do not submit personal information about a child unless it is genuinely necessary for a website and you have the legal authority to provide it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our services, providers or legal obligations change. The latest version and its update date will be published on this page.

11. Contact us

For questions, requests or concerns about personal information, email sales@sites4trades.com or write to the business address shown in section 1.