Privacy Policy

The short version

This website collects very little about you. We run Google Analytics so we can see which pages get read. That is the whole of it. No advertising pixels, no lead trackers, no session recording, no forms. All of that is easy to verify with your browser's developer tools.

Who we are

Ranking Out is a local search marketing agency working with physical therapy and chiropractic practices in the United States. We are based in Arlington, Virginia. In this policy, "we" and "us" mean Ranking Out, and "you" means a visitor to rankingout.com.

This policy covers this website only. Information we handle on behalf of practices who hire us is governed by our agreements with them, which is explained further down.

What we actually collect

Server logs

This site is hosted on GitHub Pages. Like any web host, GitHub records standard technical information when a page is served, which can include your IP address, browser type and the page requested. We do not have access to a dashboard of these logs and we do not use them to build any profile of you. GitHub processes this information under its own privacy practices.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to see how many people visit, which pages they read, roughly where in the country they are, and whether they arrived from a search engine or a link somewhere. It tells us how many people read a page. It does not tell us who they are.

To do that, Google Analytics stores two cookies in your browser, named _ga and _ga_ followed by a string of characters. They hold a random identifier so that your second visit is not counted as a second person. Google also receives your IP address, uses it to estimate which city you are in, and then discards it. It is not kept in our reports and we never see it.

We have not switched on advertising features, remarketing or Google Signals. This data is not used to build an advertising profile of you and not used to follow you around other websites.

If you would rather not be counted, install Google's opt-out browser add-on, block cookies for this site in your browser settings, or use any of the usual content blockers. Nothing on this site breaks if you do. We would rather you read the thing comfortably than show up in a chart.

If you book a call

Our contact page includes a scheduling tool provided by Cal.com. Loading that page loads content from Cal.com's servers. If you book an appointment, you give Cal.com the details you type into it, typically your name, email address, and anything you write in the notes field. That information reaches us as a calendar booking.

Please do not enter patient information, health details or anything confidential into that booking form. It is a scheduling tool, not a secure channel, and nothing about a first conversation with us requires it.

If you call or email us

Phone numbers and email addresses on this site are ordinary links. If you use them, you contact us directly and we hold whatever you choose to tell us, for as long as we need it to respond and to keep a record of our dealings with you.

What we do with it

We use the information above to reply to you, to schedule and hold conversations, to understand which pages on this site are worth keeping, and to keep normal business records. We do not use it for automated decision making, and we do not sell it.

Who we share information with

We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for advertising. The only third parties involved in running this website are:

• GitHub, which hosts the site and serves these pages.
• Google, which provides the analytics described above.
• Cal.com, which provides the scheduling tool on our contact page.
• Our email and phone providers, which carry messages you send us.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, which has not happened and which we would resist where we reasonably could.

Client and patient information

This is the part that matters most to the practices who hire us, so we want it stated plainly rather than buried.

When a clinic engages us, our work can involve information about their patients. A reactivation campaign runs against a list of people who received care. Call handling records what a caller said. An intake form collects what someone wrote about why they are getting in touch.

None of that is covered by this website policy. It is governed by the written agreement we sign with each practice, including a business associate agreement where one is required, and it is handled on infrastructure chosen for that purpose.

We do not use one client's patient information for any other client, we do not use it to market our own services, and we do not retain it after an engagement ends beyond what the agreement provides for.

Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights over personal information a business holds about you, including the right to ask what is held, to have it corrected, and to have it deleted. Virginia, California and a number of other states provide rights along these lines.

Given how little this site collects, in most cases the honest answer to "what do you hold about me" is "nothing beyond what you sent us directly." Either way, ask and we will tell you, and we will not charge you or make it difficult.

To make a request, email info@rankingout.com. We may need to confirm who you are before acting, purely so we do not hand your information to somebody else.

Retention, security and children

We keep business contact information for as long as we have a relationship with you or a reason to keep a record, then dispose of it. Information is held on services that use encryption in transit and at rest, and access is limited to people who need it.

No system is perfectly secure and we will not pretend otherwise. What we can say is that this website is a static site with no database and no user accounts, which removes most of the ways a website gets breached.

This site is intended for practice owners and operators. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.

Changes and how to reach us

If this policy changes we will update the date at the top of the page. Material changes, such as adding analytics or advertising tools, will be reflected here before those tools go live.