Terms of service

LinkCensus maps link neighborhoods from open Common Crawl web-graph data. Results are evidence for investigation, not proof of commercial relevance, authority, traffic, or safety.

A seat is a one-time purchase for access to the editions LinkCensus publishes while the service operates. Founder seats are sold first, at $79 for 100 seats; lifetime seats follow at $149 for 200 seats. Prices are in US dollars; some countries are offered a euro price at checkout. Applicable tax is calculated at checkout, which shows the exact total before you pay. The tier is fixed by which seats are still free when you pay, and your receipt names it. Each seat includes one neighborhood report. Dated editions are immutable and no future release schedule is promised. A seat does not guarantee API access; API keys and their limits are described under Agent API.

Every seat carries the same limits: 300 lookups and 50 exports per calendar month, and 50 lookups per day. A lookup is one neighborhood query; an export is one CSV or JSON file of up to 100 result rows. Counters reset with the period; unused allowance does not carry over. Anonymous visitors see a five-row preview under a separate hourly limit. These website limits do not cover the agent API, which has its own allowance.

The agent API returns the same dated neighborhood results to software, through an API key used directly, with the LinkCensus command-line client, or with a local MCP server. It is available only while LinkCensus offers it; the API documentation and your account page show whether keys can be issued. Before a free key is issued you must accept these terms and acknowledge the privacy policy, in the revisions shown to you at that time.

Free API access costs nothing and is limited to 5 neighborhood lookups per account per calendar month in UTC, with at most five result rows per lookup. Edition and domain-resolution requests do not count toward that allowance, but they are still rate limited. A neighborhood lookup counts once it is admitted, even when it returns no rows or fails afterwards.

The monthly API allowance belongs to the account, not to a key: every key on the account, and every client using one, draws on the same counter, and replacing or revoking a key does not reset it. API lookups are counted separately from the website lookups and exports under Fair use; neither allowance draws on the other. Unused allowance does not carry over.

While an account has current seat access, it can issue paid-tier keys with up to 1,000 neighborhood lookups per month and up to 100 rows per lookup. A free-tier key keeps the free limits on any account. If seat access ends, paid-tier keys fall back to the free limits.

A key is shown once, when it is issued. Keep it secret, use only your own key, and do not publish it or share it. You can replace or revoke a key from your account, and we may revoke keys used against these terms. Results returned through the API are link-neighborhood candidates from a dated edition, not confirmed competitors, and the No redistribution and Acceptable use terms apply to them as they do on the website.

A neighborhood report is a stored snapshot of up to 30 related domains for one domain in one named edition, where available, with the shared-linker evidence and a deterministic note per row. It does not change when a later edition is published. Beyond the report included with a seat, reports cost $29 each as a one-off purchase; buying one without a seat creates a free account that can sign in to see its reports. If the domain is not covered in the active edition, the report credit stays on the account.

Each report is served at a private, unguessable share link. It is not indexed, but anyone who has the link can open it, so share it deliberately. A domain suppressed at its owner's request after generation is redacted from the report when it is viewed.

Exports and reports are for your own or your client's work. You may not redistribute them, publish them as a dataset, or resell them as a product or data feed. The underlying host embeddings, web graph, host table and search index are never provided in any form, as their Common Crawl license cannot be passed on. Automated bulk collection of results is not permitted.

Do not bypass rate limits, bulk scrape the service, resell raw output as a competing product, or use LinkCensus for unlawful activity. We may limit or suspend abusive access.

A domain owner who verifies control by DNS TXT record or a role mailbox can have the domain suppressed from results, exports and reports; the suppression takes effect immediately and applies to every edition served. The full policy, including manual requests, is on the opt-out page.

EU consumers have a 14-day right of withdrawal for digital purchases. If you are unhappy with a founder seat or a lifetime seat for any reason, email [email protected] within 14 days of buying it and we refund the seat in full. After 14 days a seat refund is at our discretion. Name the address you bought with so we can find the payment.

A one-off report is generated and emailed as soon as your payment clears, so it is delivered immediately. The same 14 days apply to it: email the address above within 14 days of buying a report and we refund it in full. If the domain is not covered in the active edition, no report is generated and the credit stays on your account.

A deposit is separate from a seat. Its pre-tax amount is credited toward a seat; any applicable tax is adjusted at seat checkout. Before the credit is used, the full amount paid, including tax, is refundable on request. If LinkCensus is not live, we refund uncredited deposits automatically 60 days after our go or no-go decision, and immediately if we decide to stop. Purchase and deposit questions go to the same address.

Common Crawl data is incomplete and can miss new or small sites. The service is provided as available, without a promise that a domain will be covered or that an edition will be refreshed. The data terms LinkCensus operates under are explained on the method page.

LinkCensus is operated by Search Engine Wizards (HerSecret.fi Oy), a Finnish limited liability company. These terms are governed by Finnish law. Questions and refund requests go to the contact address below.