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Terms of Service

Efficient Websites, LLC Terms of Service

The use of services from Efficient Websites, LLC (also referred to as “we,” “us,” or “the Company”) constitutes your (“you,” “the customer”) agreement to these terms.

General Terms of Service

Hourly Rate. Our hourly rates are charged in 15-minute increments. Each request (email, phone call, etc.) counts at a minimum of one 15-minute increment. To reduce your billed time, we recommend you combine requests into as few emails and phone calls as possible.

Service Level Agreements. Content updates are not provided by the Company unless specifically stated. The Company takes precautions against, but cannot provide any guarantees with regard to website downtime, hacking, unauthorized access, and viruses. Search engine indexing and rankings are not guaranteed.

Use in Other Media. Unless specifically requested by the customer before making the first payment, the Company has permission to use links to, images of, and text from the customer’s website, in whole or in part, on the Company’s website and other media. If such a request is made after, the customer’s first payment, the Company cannot guarantee removal of stated content.

Cancellations and Refunds. At project completion, if the total hours worked are less than what you paid for, you will receive account credit for the remaining balance. Any refunds are provided at the sole discretion of the Company. If a refund is provided, the Company reserves the right to pro-rate the refund and/or deduct any service charges it deems fit. Reasons for reducing or not providing a refund may include, but are not limited to the following: 1) If, at the time the cancellation request has been received by the Company, some or all of the work has already been completed by the Company. 2) If the amount of the refund is determined to be less than $100.00 USD. 3) If the cancellation request is for hosting services, and at the time the cancellation request has been received by the Company, there were fewer than 90 days remaining in the hosting contract. 4) If the setup, custom design, or hosting contract were discounted or were part of a promotional offer.

Indemnification. The customer agrees that he or she shall defend, indemnify, save and hold the Company harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney’s fees asserted against the Company, its agents, its customers, officers and employees, that may arise or result from any service provided, performed, agreed to be performed, or any product sold by the customer, its agents, employees or assigns. The customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless the Company against liabilities arising out of: 1) any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with the Company, 2) any material supplied by the customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party, 3) copyright infringement, and 4) any defective products sold to customers by the Company.

Custom Web Design

Procedure. The procedure for custom web design projects is as follows:

  1. You fill out the Request for Proposal, agreeing to the Terms of Service. Send all materials and content for your website to us, including but not limited to:
    1. Outline of how you want your navigation menu ordered. Preferred file format: .doc (Microsoft Word). Other file formats accepted: .rtf, .txt.
    2. The content of your website pages, with each page in a separate document. Preferred file format: .doc (Microsoft Word). Other file formats accepted: .rtf, .txt. You must designate the title of each page. If you do not indicate a title, we will use the document file name. If you want headings or any special formatting within the content, those must be marked as such or indicated with square brackets [] in the documents. Images, galleries, videos, maps, contact forms, etc. must also be indicated with square brackets.
    3. Logos for your company and/or other affiliations. Preferred file format: .png. Other file formats accepted: .gif, .jpg. You must have permission to use any logos you send. They must be properly sized. If you want the logo to appear with a different colored background, you must save the logo file with a transparent background.
    4. Photos and other images. Preferred file format: .jpg. Other file formats accepted: .gif, .png. You must have permission to use any photos and images you send. They must be properly sized.
    5. Other files, such as audio, video, documents, and PDFs that you want embedded on your site or available for download.
  2. We will send you the estimated project time and cost. This is based on your Request for Proposal and materials sent. Any tasks or materials sent after this estimate is made will be considered separately billable projects, outside the scope of the original project. Please review the Additional Costs section below.
  3. You make the initial payment. Please review the Payments section below.
  4. We will construct a draft website for your review. This will typically consist of 50% or less of the time estimate. We will notify you how much time has been spent towards the project.
  5. You provide feedback for changes, and we respond to those changes, until you are satisfied with the draft website. You make subsequent payments if necessary.
  6. We publish the finished website. Publication (or “activation” or “launch”) may take up to 5 business days after the Company receives final approval from the customer. We will provide you with a login for you to manage your website.

Payments. You must send payment for work in advance. We will not begin work until we have received your initial payment. If the project estimate totals $500.00 USD or less, the initial payment is the full payment; 100% of the website setup cost must be delivered to the Company within 30 days of receipt of the project estimate. If the project estimate totals more than $500.00 USD, the initial payment is a minimum of 50% of the full cost estimate; 50% of the website setup cost must be delivered to the Company within 30 days of receipt of the project estimate. Upon receipt of the first payment, the Company will begin project development. If the customer is hosting with the Company and a new domain name needs to be purchased, the domain name will be purchased by the Company and the hosting contract will begin at this time, unless the customer specifically requests the purchase to be delayed. The website will not be published (or “activated” or “launched”) until all payments have been made.

Additional Costs. The Company reserves the right to impose additional costs for work not covered in the scope of the agreement, and/or failure of the customer to meet deadlines for communication. Examples may include, but are not limited to: repeated rejection or modification of layout designs, editorial and stylistic changes to content sent by the customer, editing and organizing images or other multimedia, and long delays in responding to communication (5 business days or more).

Content. Prohibited content includes, but is not limited to the following: spam, computer and Internet viruses, hacking, terrorism, hate crimes, privacy violation, torture, slander, defamation, threats, harassment, abuse, illegal drugs, distribution of prescription medication without authorization, impersonation of another identity, pornography, obscenities, and other content that may be considered morally objectionable or illegal in the United States and any countries in which you do business. The Company reserves the right to suspend and/or terminate any services immediately and without prior notice if your website is found to contain any prohibited content.

For Self-Hosted Websites. If you are hosting the website yourself, you must use WordPress-compatible, Linux-based hosting and provide us with full, administrator-level access to the hosting account, including full read/write access to the file system and databases.

Browser Compatibility. We design websites to be compatible with the latest versions of the four most popular web browsers only: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. We do not guarantee compatibility with the many older versions and infrequently used web browsers.

Search Engine Visibility. After publishing your website, we will submit it to the Google, Bing, and Yahoo! search engines unless otherwise requested. We cannot guarantee inclusion in the search engines or rankings in the search engine results.

Transfers

Transferring Domain Names from Other Providers. We cannot guarantee the transfer of a domain name from a given hosting provider. We have successfully transferred domains from GoDaddy, HostMonster, and Register.com; however, this is not a guarantee. You will need administrative access to the account in order to transfer the domain name(s) to Efficient Websites. It may take several business days to transfer your domain name from another host. Some hosting providers will not allow you to transfer a domain name away from them for the 30-day period before and the 30-day period after the domain name’s renewal/expiration date.

Premium Web Hosting

Renewal Policy. The Company will bill the customer via email no later than 60 days prior to expiration of the customer’s hosting contract. If payment is not received by the Company by 30 days prior to expiration of the customer’s hosting contract, the Company will cancel the hosting contract on the date of expiration. In this event, the Company cannot guarantee renewal of the domain name, and on the date of expiration a third party may be able to take ownership of the domain name. The Company is not responsible for any costs incurred, business lost, or other damages resulting in the loss of the domain name.

Domain Renewals. The domain name renewal is only included as part of the hosting contract if the Company has ownership of the domain.

Upgrades. Upgrades for WordPress core, themes, and plugins are mandatory and determined by the Company at all times. In most cases we will not charge for fixing errors caused by upgrades.

Backups. The Company does not provide any guarantees for the availability of backups, or the backup or restoration of your website content or files. Database backups are typically performed daily, and file backups are typically performed weekly.

Cancellation. Upon receiving notice of cancellation, the Company will provide the following services, if requested within 30 days of the cancellation notice: 1) Unlock the domain name(s) associated with your account. 2) Send the EPP code(s) for the domain name(s) via email to your email address on record. 3) Send a MySQL database backup and file backup of your account, if less than 10MB in combined size, via email to your email address on record. If the backups exceed 10MB in combined size, you will be given FTP access to the files for 30 days. The Company does not guarantee the quality or completeness of any backups provided. Upon cancellation of hosting, you will no longer have access to the “Customize” administration pages, which contain proprietary code from the Company. Additionally, the Company is not responsible for transferring your domain name(s), transferring your files, installing software, setting up accounts, setting up databases, upgrading software, and any problems during or resulting from the aforementioned activities. The Company does not provide any guarantees for the appearance, functionality, or continued operation of your website once hosting has been canceled. Once the Company unlocks your domain name(s), if you do not properly transfer your domain name(s) to another account or registrar, a third party may be able to take ownership of the domain name(s). The Company is not responsible for any costs incurred, business lost, or other damages resulting in the loss of the domain name(s).

Search Engine Optimization


Additional Terms of Service

These terms and pricing are subject to change at any time and without notice. Revised 9/2/2010.