Website terms of use

Website terms of use govern the relationship between the site and the person reading it. They set out what visitors may and may not do, who owns the content, what you promise about availability, and where a dispute would be heard. They are not a sales contract and they are not a privacy document, which is the confusion worth clearing up first.

Three separate documents, often mistaken for one

These terms cover use of the site. If you sell goods, services or digital content through it, the sale is governed by terms of sale, which is a different document with consumer cancellation rights and delivery obligations in it. And whatever the site does, you need a privacy notice and a cookie policy, because those are required by the UK GDPR and by the cookie rules rather than by choice.

Consumers and businesses are not treated the same

Clause 13 on liability and clause 16 on governing law split the two on purpose, because consumer law limits what can be excluded and gives a consumer the right to bring proceedings in their own country. Keep both parts unless the site is genuinely used by only one group, which is rarer than site owners assume: a business-facing site with a public blog and a newsletter has consumer visitors.

If visitors can post, read clause 8 carefully

Clause 8 deals with content posted by visitors, whether that is reviews, comments or forum posts, and can be deleted if your site does not allow it. If it does, the terms are only part of the answer. The Online Safety Act 2023 places duties on services that allow user-to-user content, and whether it catches your site is a question worth asking before you publish rather than after a complaint.

Availability, and not promising what you cannot deliver

The template does not guarantee that the site will be available, which is the right position for a business that does not control its hosting. Where the site is the product rather than a shop window, that is a different document again: a subscription service needs a software as a service agreement with real availability commitments in it.

Where to put them

Published on the site, with a link in the footer of every page, and dated. Terms nobody can find are difficult to enforce, and a "last updated" line is the cheapest way to show which version applied when.

Our data protection solicitors handle the notice and cookie side, and our commercial contracts team the terms of sale where you trade through the site.