Terms of service

Rankbids is a paid promotional listing directory. You pay a one-time fee to publish a listing for a link you control, and the position of that listing on our public board is determined by the amount paid.

To be unambiguous about what this is and is not:

• Every payment delivers a listing. There is no losing outcome. Your listing is published and remains published; it does not disappear if someone else pays more.
• There is no element of chance. Placement is a deterministic function of the amount paid and the time it was paid. Nothing is drawn, randomised, or awarded by lot.
• There is no prize. Ranking first confers advertising placement on this website and nothing else. No money, credit, goods or other consideration is paid out to any user.
• There is no fee to participate. We do not charge for the act of bidding, for placing an offer, or for any attempt that does not result in a listing. The only charge is the price of the placement itself.

Accordingly, this service is not a lottery, sweepstake, contest, game of chance, game of skill, gambling service, or bidding-fee (“penny”) auction, and must not be used or described as one. We use the words “bid” and “outbid” as plain-language shorthand for buying and raising a placement price.

You must be at least 18 and able to form a binding contract. If you register on behalf of a company, you confirm you are authorised to bind it, and “you” means that company.

There is nothing to sign up for. A listing belongs to the email address given to Stripe at checkout, and you are responsible for everything done through it. Tell us promptly at support@rankbids.com if you believe that address has been compromised. Using several addresses to manipulate placement or credits may cost you the listings.

Within each category, listings are ordered by a single rule:

• highest amount paid ranks first;
• where two listings have paid the same amount, the one that reached that amount first ranks higher.

The Today board applies the same rule to listings that received a payment in the preceding 24 hours. We do not re-order the board by clicks, engagement, editorial judgement, or any undisclosed factor.

We may change the categories offered, the presentation of the board, or the ranking rule itself. If we change the ranking rule in a way that would demote a live listing, we will give notice and you may request a refund of the payment for that listing under section 6.

Every position on this website is a paid placement. We disclose this on the board, in the site footer, and here.

Outbound links from listings point directly at the destination and are tagged with a utm_source parameter so you can see the referral in your own analytics. We make no representation about how any search engine treats these links, and a placement here is not a search-engine optimisation service. Search engines set their own policies on paid links and may disregard or penalise them; that is outside our control and yours.

The minimum placement fee is $5, and amounts move in $1 steps. Taking a position from its current holder costs $1 more than that holder has paid. Paying less than the leading amount does not fail — it places you lower on the board.

Raising a placement costs only the difference. Amounts you have already paid toward a listing are credited against a later increase on that same listing, so the total you ever pay for a listing equals its current placement amount. Credit is specific to your email address and to that listing, is not transferable, has no cash value, and cannot be withdrawn or redeemed except as a reduction against a later payment.

All amounts shown on the board are in US dollars and are exclusive of tax. Where we are required to collect sales tax, VAT or GST, it is calculated at checkout based on your billing address and added to the amount you pay. The placement amount itself — the figure that determines your position — never includes tax, so the board means the same thing for every bidder regardless of where they are billed.

If you are a business in a jurisdiction that operates a reverse charge, you may supply a valid VAT or GST registration number at checkout, in which case you account for the tax instead of us. You are responsible for the accuracy of any number you supply.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We never receive or store your card details. Your payment is also subject to Stripe’s terms, and we are not responsible for Stripe’s acts or omissions.

Placement is delivered immediately on payment, so fees are non-refundable once your listing is live, except as set out below.

Being outbid is not grounds for a refund. Someone paying more than you is the expected operation of the service, is disclosed before you pay, and does not remove your listing — it moves it down. You received the placement you paid for.

We will refund you in full where:

• a payment succeeded but no listing was published;
• we removed your listing under section 8 for a reason that was not your fault;
• we demoted your listing by changing the ranking rule under section 3;
• you were charged more than once for the same placement;
• we are required to refund you by law.

Request a refund at support@rankbids.com. Please contact us before raising a chargeback — we can usually resolve it faster, and a chargeback filed without contacting us first may cost you the listing it relates to.

You may submit any public link you own or are authorised to promote. You are responsible for the destination remaining online, accurate and safe.

You represent and warrant that:

• you have the right to submit the link and to display the associated name, description and icon;
• the listing accurately describes where the link goes;
• the destination does not contain malware, phishing, or content illegal in your jurisdiction or ours;
• you are not impersonating a person or company you do not represent.

You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, display, reproduce and link to the submitted name, description and icon for the purpose of operating and promoting the board. This licence ends when the listing is removed, except for copies retained in backups or required for legal compliance.

When you submit a link we fetch that page to read its title, description and icon. You consent to that request being made on your behalf.

We may remove or suspend a listing, with or without notice, where it:

• links to illegal content, malware or phishing;
• misrepresents its destination;
• impersonates a person or company;
• contains sexual content, harassment, or targets a private individual;
• infringes intellectual property rights;
• violates these terms in any other material way.

Removal for the reasons above is without refund. Being a competitor, being unpopular, or being poorly reviewed elsewhere are not reasons for removal. If you believe your listing was removed in error, write to support@rankbids.com and we will review it.

To report infringing content, contact legal@rankbids.com with the listing, the work you say is infringed, and your contact details.

You must not:

• inflate, automate or otherwise manipulate click counts or visitor counts;
• use multiple email addresses to manipulate placement or credits;
• scrape, crawl or bulk-download the board except as permitted by our robots.txt;
• interfere with the service, or attempt to access listings or data that are not yours;
• represent a placement here as an editorial endorsement, a search ranking, or an SEO service.

A placement buys a position on this board and nothing more. We do not promise, and you must not rely on, any particular number of visitors, clicks, impressions, conversions, sales, sign-ups, revenue, search ranking, or duration at a given position.

Traffic and click figures shown on this site are historical counts of real events. They describe what has already happened and are not a forecast of what a placement will deliver for you.

Listings link to websites we do not operate or control. We do not endorse them, and we are not responsible for their content, products, practices or privacy handling. Your dealings with them are solely between you and them.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free.

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

Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the service is limited to the greater of (a) the total amount you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) $100.

You will indemnify and hold harmless Rankbids.com and its officers, employees and agents from claims, damages and reasonable legal costs arising out of a link or content you submitted, your breach of these terms, or your violation of any law or third-party right.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or limitation of certain damages. Where that applies to you, the exclusions above apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing here limits liability for fraud, wilful misconduct, or anything that cannot lawfully be limited.

Please read this section carefully. It requires most disputes to be resolved by binding individual arbitration, waives your right to a jury trial, and waives your right to participate in a class action. You may opt out within 30 days.

14.1 Talk to us first. Before starting arbitration or a lawsuit, send a written notice describing the dispute and the relief you want to legal@rankbids.com. Both parties will try in good faith to resolve it for 30 days after that notice. This step is a precondition to filing.

14.2 Binding arbitration. If we cannot resolve it, any dispute arising out of or relating to these terms or the service will be settled by final and binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, before one arbitrator. The Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this section. Arbitration will take place in Travis County, Texas, or by video or telephone at your election, or by written submissions where the rules allow. The arbitrator may award the same individual relief a court could, and the award may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction.

14.3 Class action waiver. You and Rankbids.com agree that each may bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, private attorney general, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person’s claims and may not preside over any form of representative proceeding. If this paragraph is found unenforceable as to a particular claim or request for relief, then that claim or request — and only that one — must proceed in court under section 15, and the rest of this section 14 continues to apply to everything else.

14.4 Jury trial waiver. To the extent any dispute proceeds in court rather than arbitration, both parties knowingly and voluntarily waive any right to a trial by jury.

14.5 Exceptions. Either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court, and either party may seek injunctive relief in court to protect intellectual property or stop unauthorised access to the service.

14.6 Your right to opt out. You may reject this arbitration and class action waiver by emailing legal@rankbids.com with the email address you paid with and the words “arbitration opt-out” within 30 days of first accepting these terms. Opting out affects nothing else in this agreement, and we will not treat it as a reason to remove your listings.

14.7 Time limit. Any claim must be brought within one year of when it arose, or it is permanently barred, unless a longer period is required by law.

These terms and any dispute arising from them are governed by the laws of the State of Texas and applicable federal law of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles, and excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

For any dispute not subject to arbitration under section 14, you and Rankbids.com consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state and federal courts located in Travis County, Texas, and waive any objection to those courts on grounds of inconvenient forum.

You may ask us to remove your listings at any time; removal does not entitle you to a refund of fees already paid. We may suspend or remove a listing that breaches these terms, and will refund any placement fee for a listing we remove for a reason that was not your fault.

Sections 7 (your warranties), 10 through 15, and 17 survive termination.

Changes. We may update these terms. Material changes take effect 14 days after we post them, and we will update the effective date above. Changes do not apply retroactively to a dispute that arose before they took effect, and a change to section 14 does not apply to a dispute you notified us of beforehand. Continuing to use the service after a change takes effect means you accept it.

Severability. If a provision is found unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary, or severed, and the rest stays in force.

No waiver. Failing to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.

Assignment. You may not assign these terms without our written consent. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets.

Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control.

Entire agreement. These terms, together with the privacy policy, are the entire agreement between us about the service and supersede any prior understanding.

Contact. Rankbids.com. Legal notices to legal@rankbids.com; support at support@rankbids.com.