Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and AAX Agency ("we", "us", "our"), a California business based in Burbank, California.

They cover two different things, and it is worth knowing which part applies to you:

1. 01Using this website. Sections 2 to 4 apply to anyone who visits aaxagency.com, including people who are just reading.
2. 02Buying our services. Sections 5 to 15 apply once you engage us for work. If we have signed a separate written proposal or services agreement with you, that document controls wherever it conflicts with these Terms.

Nothing on this website is an offer capable of acceptance. Prices, timelines and scope only become binding when both sides sign a written proposal.

You may read, print and share this website freely. In return, please do not:

• Scrape, crawl or harvest the site at a rate that degrades it for other visitors.
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the site or its underlying systems.
• Submit false information through our contact form, or use it to send unsolicited advertising.
• Copy substantial portions of our written content and publish it as your own.

We may restrict access to anyone who does these things, without notice.

The text, design, code, layout and graphics on this website are owned by us and protected by copyright. The AAX Agency name and logo are our marks. You may quote short passages with attribution and a link; you may not republish whole pages.

All imagery on this site is original work we created. We do not use stock photography on this site, so nothing here is licensed from a third party.

Anything you send us through the contact form stays yours. By sending it, you give us permission to read it, store it and use it to respond to you — nothing more. See our Privacy Policy for the detail.

The articles, guides, checklists and location pages on this site are general information about how search and web performance work. They are not professional advice about your specific business, and search engines change their behaviour without notice.

Any figures we cite about industry averages come from third-party research and describe the market generally, not a result we promise you.

We quote a fixed price in writing after an audit. A quote is valid for 30 days unless it says otherwise.

The written proposal defines what is included. Work outside it is out of scope. If you ask for something out of scope, we will tell you the cost before doing it — we do not perform unapproved work and then invoice for it.

Timelines in a proposal assume you supply content, photography, access and approvals when requested. If those are late, the schedule moves by a comparable amount. We will tell you when that happens rather than letting a deadline quietly slip.

• Project work is billed to a schedule set out in the proposal, typically a deposit to start and the balance at launch.
• Ongoing SEO and marketing is billed monthly in advance.
• Invoices are due on the terms stated on the invoice.
• Advertising spend is separate from our fees. Wherever possible, ad accounts are held in your name and billed directly to your card, so you keep control and we never mark up media.
• Third-party costs we pay on your behalf — hosting, premium plugins, stock licences, paid tools — are passed through at cost and identified on the invoice.

If an invoice goes materially overdue we may pause work after giving you notice. We will not take a live site offline or withhold your domain over a billing dispute.

Fees are exclusive of any applicable taxes, which are your responsibility.

You are responsible for the accuracy and legality of everything you give us to publish. By supplying content you confirm that you own it or are licensed to use it, and that it is truthful and not misleading.

This matters most for regulated claims. If your business holds a licence, certification or insurance that you want stated on the site, we will publish exactly what you give us — the accuracy of a licence number, an award, a certification or a years-in-business figure is yours to verify, not ours.

You are responsible for maintaining your own backups of any content you supply, and for the security of credentials you share with us.

On receipt of payment in full for the relevant work, we assign to you all right, title and interest in the final deliverables created specifically for you — the website design, the page templates, the written copy, and the custom code.

Your domain name, hosting account, code repository and analytics property are registered in your name from the beginning. They are yours before you have paid us a penny, and they remain yours if you leave.

Two carve-outs, stated plainly so there is no surprise later:

• We keep ownership of our own pre-existing tools, libraries, internal components and general know-how. You get a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use those as embedded in your deliverables, but you do not own them outright and we may reuse them for other clients.
• Open-source components keep their own licences. We will tell you what is used; your use of them is governed by those licences, not by this agreement.

Until you have paid in full, the deliverables remain our property and you have no licence to use them.

We will not publish your name, logo, screenshots or performance figures as a case study without your prior written permission. Permission for one specific use is not permission for all uses.

If you grant permission you can withdraw it later, and we will remove the material from our own site within a reasonable period. We cannot retrieve material already distributed elsewhere, such as in a social post that has been shared.

We may describe the work generically — for example "a Burbank auto shop" — without naming you.

This section matters. Please read it.

We do not guarantee any particular search ranking, traffic volume, lead count, conversion rate, revenue figure or return on investment. Nobody honestly can. Search engines and advertising platforms control their own ranking and delivery systems, change them frequently and without notice, and do not consult us.

Google's own guidance advises businesses to be wary of any SEO provider that guarantees a number one ranking. We agree with that advice and we will not make such a promise to win your business.

• What we do commit to is the work itself: the deliverables listed in your proposal, performed competently and on the agreed schedule.
• We also commit to honest reporting — including in the months where the numbers go the wrong way.

Results from a previous engagement are not a prediction of yours. Different market, different competition, different budget.

Third-party platforms are outside our control. If Google, Meta or a hosting provider suspends an account, changes a policy, or has an outage, we will help you resolve it, but we are not responsible for it.

We warrant that we will perform our services with reasonable skill and care, in a professional manner, consistent with industry standards.

Beyond that express warranty, this website and our services are provided "as is". To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all other warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the website will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that every defect will be corrected.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data or loss of business opportunity, even if advised that such damages were possible.

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to our services is limited to the total fees you paid us in the twelve months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, willful injury, gross negligence, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited — including under California Civil Code section 1668. If any part of this section is held unenforceable, the rest stays in force.

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from third-party claims arising out of content you supplied to us, including claims that it infringes a copyright or trademark, is defamatory, or makes a false or unsubstantiated advertising claim.

We agree to indemnify and hold you harmless from third-party claims that our original deliverables, used as we delivered them, infringe that third party's intellectual property rights.

In each case the indemnified party must notify the other promptly and allow them to control the defence.

Project work ends when the project is delivered and paid for.

Ongoing SEO and marketing engagements run month to month after the initial period stated in your proposal. They renew automatically each month, at the same rate, until you cancel.

• You may cancel at any time, effective at the end of the current paid month, by emailing us or telling us by phone. We will confirm in writing.
• We will not require you to call a retention line, sit through an offer, or complete more steps to cancel than it took to sign up.
• We do not charge an early-termination penalty.
• Fees already paid for the current month are not refunded, because the work for that month has been scheduled and largely performed. See our Refund Policy.

We may end an engagement with 30 days' written notice, or immediately if you ask us to do something unlawful, misleading, or in breach of a platform's terms. On termination we will hand over work in progress, access and credentials.

California's Automatic Renewal Law (Business & Professions Code §17600 and following) governs subscriptions that renew automatically. Before your first recurring charge we will give you the renewal terms, the amount, the frequency and how to cancel, in a form you can keep — and we will get your clear agreement to them.

Each side will keep the other's non-public business information confidential and use it only for the engagement. That obligation survives the end of the engagement for three years, and indefinitely for anything that qualifies as a trade secret.

It does not cover information that is already public, that the receiving party already had, or that is required to be disclosed by law.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules.

If something goes wrong, the first step is to talk. Contact us and we will try in good faith to resolve it within 30 days. Most problems end here.

If that fails, the state and federal courts located in Los Angeles County, California have exclusive jurisdiction, and both parties consent to venue there. Nothing stops either of us from bringing an individual claim in small claims court, which is often the faster and cheaper route for a smaller dispute.

Each party bears its own costs unless a court orders otherwise.

• Entire agreement. These Terms, together with any signed proposal, are the whole agreement between us and replace any earlier discussions.
• Severability. If a court finds any provision unenforceable, the rest remains in force and the unenforceable part is narrowed to the minimum extent necessary.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision on one occasion, we have not given up the right to enforce it later.
• Assignment. Neither party may assign this agreement without the other's written consent, except to a successor of substantially the whole business.
• Independent contractor. We are an independent contractor, not your employee, partner or agent.
• Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay caused by events genuinely outside its reasonable control.

We may update these Terms. The "last updated" date at the top will change, and material changes affecting an active engagement will be sent to you directly rather than only posted here. Changes do not apply retroactively to work already performed.