Effective date: April 8, 2026
SkillsToPivot (we, us, our) is a website that publishes independent reviews, comparisons, and guides to help adults change careers using online certificates. We take your privacy seriously and have written this policy in plain English so you know exactly what we do with any information you share with us.
1. What Information We Collect
Information you give us directly
We only collect information you actively choose to provide:
- Contact form submissions: Your name, email address, and message when you fill in our contact form.
- Newsletter subscriptions: Your email address when you sign up to receive our newsletter or updates.
We do not ask for your phone number, home address, date of birth, payment details, or any sensitive personal information.
Information collected automatically
When you visit our site, certain technical information may be collected automatically:
- Usage data: Which pages you visit, how long you spend on them, what you click, and how you navigate the site.
- Device & browser information: Your browser type, operating system, screen size, and device type (desktop, mobile, tablet).
- IP address: Used to determine your approximate geographic region (country/state level). We do not track precise location.
- Referral source: How you arrived at our site (e.g. a search engine, a social media link, or another website).
- Affiliate click data: If you click an affiliate link, we log which link was clicked, which page you were on, and the timestamp — for internal analytics purposes only.
We do not collect or store: payment information, government IDs, passport numbers, health data, or any other sensitive personal data. We are a content and review website, not an e-commerce platform.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
- Responding to you: When you send us a message via the contact form, we use your name and email to reply.
- Sending you newsletters: If you subscribed, we use your email to send editorial updates, new reviews, and career-change tips. You can unsubscribe at any time.
- Improving our content: We use analytics data to understand which articles are most useful, how people navigate the site, and what topics to cover next.
- Site performance: Technical data helps us identify and fix errors, improve load times, and ensure the site works correctly on different devices.
- Affiliate reporting: We track which affiliate links are clicked and on which pages for our own internal reporting. We do not share this click-level data with third parties beyond what is necessary for the affiliate network to attribute a referral.
We do not use your information to serve you advertising, sell your data to third parties, or profile you for marketing purposes beyond what is described above.
3. Newsletter & Email Communications
If you subscribe to our newsletter, here is exactly what you can expect:
- We will send occasional editorial emails — typically weekly or less frequently — covering new certificate reviews, salary data, career advice, and comparison guides.
- Every email includes a clearly visible unsubscribe link. Clicking it removes you from future sends immediately.
- We do not send promotional emails on behalf of third parties. We will not add you to lists without your consent.
- If you contact us via the contact form, we will only use your email to reply to your specific message — not to add you to our newsletter list unless you explicitly opt in.
We store subscriber email addresses in a private file on our server. We do not sell or share subscriber lists.
4. Cookies & Analytics
Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to understand how visitors use our site. GA4 collects anonymised usage data including page views, session duration, device type, and traffic sources. Google processes this data on our behalf and is bound by data processing agreements under GDPR and equivalent regulations.
You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking using the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on.
Cookies
Our site may use the following types of cookies:
- Functional cookies: Small files that remember simple preferences — for example, whether you have dismissed a popup or completed a quiz. These are stored in your browser's localStorage rather than as traditional cookies.
- Analytics cookies: Set by Google Analytics to measure usage. These do not identify you personally.
- Affiliate tracking cookies: When you click an affiliate link (e.g. to Coursera, CompTIA, or Udemy), the affiliate network may set a cookie in your browser to track the referral. This is how we earn commissions. These cookies are set by the third-party platform, not by us.
Most browsers allow you to view and delete cookies in their settings. Disabling cookies may affect some site functionality.
5. Affiliate Links & Third-Party Tracking
Some links on SkillsToPivot are affiliate links — meaning if you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Our Affiliate Disclosure has full details.
When you click an affiliate link, you are transferred to a third-party website (such as Coursera, CompTIA, or Udemy). Those websites have their own privacy policies that govern how they handle your data once you arrive. We are not responsible for third-party privacy practices.
Third-party platforms we commonly link to:
6. Data Sharing
We do not sell your personal information. Ever.
We may share limited data with the following categories of third parties, only to the extent necessary to operate the site:
- Hosting provider: HostGator hosts our website and therefore stores the files that make up our site, including server logs.
- Analytics provider: Google Analytics receives anonymised usage data as described in Section 4.
- Affiliate networks: When you click an affiliate link, the network receives referral data (the page you came from and the link you clicked) to attribute commissions.
- Legal compliance: We may disclose information if required to do so by law or in response to a valid legal request from public authorities.
7. How Long We Keep Your Data
- Newsletter subscribers: We retain subscriber email addresses until you unsubscribe, or until we choose to delete our list. You can request deletion at any time by contacting us.
- Contact form messages: We retain contact form submissions for as long as necessary to resolve your query, typically no longer than 12 months.
- Analytics data: Google Analytics retains aggregated data for up to 14 months by default. You can opt out using Google's opt-out tools.
- Affiliate click logs: We retain the last 500 affiliate click records internally for site optimisation purposes. These records contain only hashed IP addresses and are not used to identify individuals.
- Server logs: Our hosting provider (HostGator) may retain server logs for a period determined by their own retention policies.
8. Security
We take reasonable technical measures to protect the information stored on our servers, including:
- HTTPS encryption on all pages (SSL/TLS)
- Password-protected admin panel with session-based authentication
- Subscriber and contact data stored in private server directories inaccessible to the public
No system is completely secure. We cannot guarantee the absolute security of information transmitted to or stored on our site. If you believe your information has been compromised, please contact us immediately.
9. Your Rights & Choices
Depending on where you live, you may have the following rights regarding your personal information:
- Access: You can ask us what information we hold about you.
- Correction: You can ask us to correct inaccurate information.
- Deletion: You can ask us to delete your subscriber record or contact form data.
- Unsubscribe: You can remove yourself from our newsletter list at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email, or by contacting us.
- Analytics opt-out: You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking using the browser add-on.
- Cookies: You can manage or delete cookies in your browser settings at any time.
To exercise any of these rights, please use our contact page. We will respond within a reasonable timeframe.
10. Children's Privacy
SkillsToPivot is intended for adults considering career changes. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13 years of age. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.
11. Changes to This Policy
We may update this privacy policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the effective date at the top of this page. Significant changes will be noted in our newsletter if they affect how we handle subscriber data. Continued use of the site after any changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
If you have questions about this privacy policy, want to exercise your data rights, or have a privacy concern, please reach out via our contact page or email us at hello@skillstopivot.com.
We aim to respond to all privacy-related requests within 5 business days.