Privacy Policy

Effective date: November 2, 2026

1. Introduction

TopekaLocals.com (the “Site”) is a local directory of home-service businesses serving Topeka, Kansas and nearby communities. The Site is owned and operated by SEM By Design, a digital marketing agency based in La Vista, Nebraska (“SEM By Design”, “we”, “us” or “our”).

This policy explains what information we collect when you visit or use the Site, how we use it, who we share it with and the choices you have. It applies only to TopekaLocals.com. The businesses listed in the directory run their own websites and have their own privacy practices.

2. Information We Collect

Information you give us

  • Contact form. Your first name, last name, email address, phone number, the topic you choose, the type of business you have and your message. Email address and phone number are required.
  • List Your Business form. Your first name, last name, email address, phone number, the topic you choose, how you describe your business and your message. Email address and phone number are required.
  • Account registration and sign-in. A username, email address and password. If you tick “Remember Me”, you stay signed in for longer.
  • Listing submissions. When a signed-in business owner adds or edits a listing, we collect:
    • business name, category and description
    • business email address, phone number and website
    • street address, ZIP code, town or neighborhood and a map pin
    • whether the business offers emergency or 24/7 service and free estimates
    • the business’s rating and review count on Google, if the owner provides them
    • images, such as a logo or photos
  • Listing claims. Your full name, phone number and the verification details you give us to show that you own or manage the business.
  • Reports. The text of any complaint you submit about a listing.

Information you put in a listing is published on the Site and anyone can see it. Please do not include personal details in a listing that you do not want to be public.

Location information

  • If you click the location icon in the search form, your browser asks your permission before sharing your location. If you allow it, your device’s coordinates are sent from your browser to OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim service to look up your address. Those coordinates may also be included in the web address of your search results page, which our analytics and server logs record.
  • When you type an address into the address field of the listing form, what you type is sent from your browser to the Nominatim service to suggest matching addresses.

Information collected automatically

When you visit the Site, we and our service providers automatically collect:

  • your IP address and the approximate location it indicates
  • your device type, browser and operating system
  • the pages you view, the site that referred you and the date and time of your visit
  • how you use the Site, such as scrolling, searches on the Site, clicks on links to other websites, form interactions, file downloads and video engagement
  • identifiers stored in cookies (see “Cookies and Tracking Technologies” below)

Information about businesses from public sources

Many listings were compiled by us from public sources, such as each business’s own website and public directories. That includes business names, contact details, addresses, service descriptions and logos. Where a business is run by one person, its listed name or phone number may also identify that person.

We also keep internal notes about each listed business’s online presence, such as whether it has a Google Business Profile, the condition of its website and whether it appears to run Google Ads. These notes are not shown on the Site. We use them to identify businesses that may benefit from marketing services.

Information from other companies

We receive reports from Google Analytics about how visitors use the Site.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information described above to:

  • run the directory, including search, listings and maps
  • create and manage accounts and publish the listings you submit
  • review listing claims, confirm that the person claiming a business is authorized to manage it and mark claimed listings as verified
  • answer your messages and inquiries
  • contact business owners about their listings and about marketing services offered by SEM By Design
  • review reports, prevent spam and fraud and keep the Site secure
  • measure how the Site is used and improve it
  • meet legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service

4. Third-Party Analytics & Data Gathering

We utilize Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to evaluate website traffic, track user interactions and improve our services. GA4 automatically collects data using device and browser information, first-party cookies, IP addresses and user behavior metrics.

To understand how Google processes this information, please review How Google Uses Data When You Use Our Partners’ Sites or Apps. You can prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics at any time by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Our Google tag is also set to detect email addresses, phone numbers and mailing addresses that you type into forms on the Site. When it detects them, that information is encoded (hashed) in your browser before it is sent to Google, and Google uses it to improve the accuracy of our measurement.

5. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Cookies are small files a website stores in your browser. The Site uses:

  • Analytics cookies. Google Analytics sets first-party cookies (named “_ga” and similar) to tell visits and visitors apart. See “Third-Party Analytics & Data Gathering” above.
  • Sign-in cookies. When you sign in, WordPress and our directory software set cookies that keep you signed in. They are needed for your account to work.
  • Security cookies. Our security and content delivery provider, Cloudflare, sets a short-lived cookie (named “__cf_bm”) and may run a brief browser check to tell people apart from automated bots.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block sign-in cookies, you will not be able to use an account on the Site. Our Site does not currently respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals.

6. How We Share Your Information

Public listings. Information in a published listing is visible to everyone who visits the Site. When a business owner’s claim on a listing is approved, the listing shows a Verified badge.

Service providers. We use companies that help us run the Site. They receive only what they need to do that work:

  • GoHighLevel (LeadConnector), our customer relationship management service, which receives and stores what you submit through our contact, List Your Business, listing and claim forms, including your name and contact details
  • WP Engine, which hosts the Site
  • Cloudflare, which delivers the Site’s pages and protects it from attacks and bots
  • Google, which provides Google Analytics and the fonts used on the Site
  • the OpenStreetMap Foundation, which provides the map images and address lookups used in listings and search

Requests you send to listed businesses. The Site does not currently pass your requests to the businesses in the directory. You contact a business directly, using the details on its listing.

Legal and safety reasons. We may disclose information when the law requires it, to respond to valid legal process or to protect the rights, property or safety of SEM By Design, our users or others.

Business transfers. If the Site or SEM By Design is sold, merged or reorganized, information about users may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this policy.

No sale of your information. We do not sell your personal information. We do not pass the inquiries, listing details or claim details you send us to the businesses in the directory or to other partners, and no one pays us for them. Google Analytics collects information directly from your browser, as described in “Third-Party Analytics & Data Gathering” above.

7. Embedded Content and Third-Party Media

Our website contains embedded media, including maps hosted by OpenStreetMap. These third-party applications function as if you visited their platforms directly. They may collect your IP address and browser information, use cookies and embed additional third-party tracking when you interact with or load the embedded content.

The Site also loads fonts from Google Fonts. When a page loads, your browser requests those fonts from Google’s servers, which receive your IP address and browser information before you interact with anything on the page. Some map features may also load code from unpkg.com, a public code-hosting service, which receives the same information when it does.

If you upload images to this website (such as business logos or listing photos), you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included, as other website visitors can download and extract this data.

8. Data Retention

We keep personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy. Account and listing information is kept while your account or listing is active and for a reasonable time after it is closed or removed. Messages and form submissions, including the copies kept in our customer relationship management service, are kept as long as we need them to respond and follow up, and to meet legal and tax obligations. Google Analytics keeps user-level and event-level data for 14 months, after which it is deleted from our Analytics account.

9. Data Security

We use reasonable measures to protect your information. The Site is served over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, and WordPress stores account passwords in hashed form rather than as plain text. No website or method of storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee the security of information you send us.

10. Your Choices and Requests

  • Your account and listings. You can review and update your account and your listings by signing in to your dashboard.
  • Access, correction and deletion. You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct or delete it, by emailing info@topekalocals.com. We may need to confirm your identity first, and we may keep information we are required to keep by law.
  • Correcting or removing a listing. If you own or manage a listed business and want its listing corrected or removed, email info@topekalocals.com.
  • Marketing contact. If we contact you about our services and you do not want to hear from us again, tell us and we will stop.

We aim to respond within 3 business days.

11. Children’s Privacy

Our website is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will post the new version on this page and change the effective date at the top. If we make a significant change to how we use or share personal information, we will also post a notice on the Site before the change takes effect.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions about this policy or wish to exercise any right described above, contact us at info@topekalocals.com or SEM By Design, 7825 S 94th St, La Vista, NE 68128.