Content guidelines

Encontado builds websites for small businesses. These are the rules about what those websites may say and sell. They apply to everything you write, upload or publish here, and to every page the designer writes for you.

Last updated 2026-09-21. We will change these guidelines as we learn, and the current version is always the one on this page.

The short version

If your website tells the truth about a lawful business, you are almost certainly fine. In plain words:

Tell the truth about your business, and use your own name, words and photos, or ones you have permission to use.
Sell only what is legal, and licensed where it needs to be, in the place you work.
Nothing sexually explicit, and nothing that endangers a child.
No hate, threats or harassment, and no publishing other people’s private details.
Nothing that tricks or harms the people who visit your website.

The full rules below are the ones that apply.

Anything that endangers a child
Sexually explicit material and adult services
Hate speech, harassment and defamation
Violence and violent extremism
Illegal and unlicensed goods and services
Scams, spam and deception
Impersonation and other people’s work
Other people’s private information
Self-harm
Attacks on the people who visit
What is allowed
How we enforce this
Reporting a website
If we get it wrong

What is not allowed

Everything in this section is prohibited. It applies whether the material is on a published site, in an answer you type, in a document you upload, or in a change you ask the designer to make.

1. Anything that endangers a child

Zero tolerance, with no exceptions and no warning first.

No sexual content involving a minor, real, drawn, written or generated.
No content that sexualises a child, and no images of children presented for that purpose.
No grooming, no solicitation of a minor, and no instructions for either.
Reports of this material are prioritised for human review. Account closure and reporting to authorities require human action.

2. Sexually explicit material and adult services

This is a builder for business websites, so it does not host pornography or the sale of sexual services.

No pornography, no sexually explicit images, video or writing.
No escort, sugar-dating or other sexual services.
No non-consensual intimate images, and nothing shared to shame or extort a person.
Adult venues that are not sexually explicit, such as a bar or a burlesque theatre, are welcome.

3. Hate speech, harassment and defamation

Attacking people for who they are is not a business, and neither is going after a named person.

No attacks on people because of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or serious illness.
No hateful symbols or slogans, and no praise of groups organised around them.
No campaign against a named private person, no pile-on, no doxxing, no threats.
No false statements of fact about a real person or business presented as true.
No invented reviews, paid reviews presented as genuine, or reviews written to damage a competitor.

4. Violence and violent extremism

Nothing that calls for harm or celebrates an organisation that causes it.

No threats and no credible calls for violence against a person or a group.
No support, funding, recruitment or promotion for a terrorist or violent extremist organisation.
No instructions for building a weapon intended to hurt people.
No graphic violence shown for its own sake.

5. Illegal and unlicensed goods and services

A licensed trade is welcome. An unlawful one is not.

No sale of controlled drugs outside a licence, and no drug paraphernalia sold for illegal use.
No human trafficking, forced labour or the sale of people.
No trade in protected wildlife or its parts.
No unlawful firearms sales, no untraceable firearms, and no conversion devices.
No stolen goods, forged documents, or tools for defeating a lock or a security system.
No unlicensed gambling, no pyramid or Ponzi schemes, and no investment offer that promises a return.

6. Scams, spam and deception

A website is a promise to a stranger. It has to be an honest one.

No phishing, no fake sign-in pages, and no page built to collect passwords or card numbers under a false name.
No storefront for goods that will not be shipped.
No fake charity or disaster appeal.
No claim about health, money or the law that a customer would rely on and that is not true.
No invented statistics, awards, certifications, clients or years in business.
No page built to send unsolicited bulk email or messages.

7. Impersonation and other people’s work

The site has to be yours, and it has to say who it belongs to.

No posing as another business, a public body, a bank, a delivery service or a real person.
No use of a brand name, logo or trade dress that belongs to someone else, in a way that suggests they are involved.
No photographs, writing, music or video you do not have the right to publish.
No synthetic image, audio or video of a real person presented as something they actually did.
Writing about, reviewing or criticising a business by name is fine. Pretending to be it is not.

8. Other people’s private information

Publishing somebody’s details is theirs to decide, not yours.

No home address, phone number, email address, identity number or financial detail belonging to a private person, without their consent.
No medical, biometric or precise location information about a person without their consent.
No photograph or recording of a person in a private setting, published without their consent.
Your own business address and contact details are of course welcome.

9. Self-harm

Nothing that encourages a person to hurt themselves.

No promotion of suicide, self-injury or disordered eating, and no instructions for any of them.
No content presenting these as a lifestyle or a goal.
Recovery services, awareness campaigns and support organisations are welcome and are not covered by this rule.

10. Attacks on the people who visit

A published site must be safe to open.

No malware, no drive-by downloads, and nothing that takes a visitor somewhere they did not choose to go.
No hidden text, cloaking, doorway pages or other attempts to deceive a search engine.
No use of this studio to probe, overload or work around the security of any system.

What is allowed

Plenty of honest businesses are age-restricted, regulated or uncomfortable to some people. They are welcome here, and we will not refuse a brief because of the trade it is in. Among them:

bars, breweries, distilleries, wine shops and liquor stores
restaurants, caterers and food trucks of every kind
licensed cannabis and hemp businesses where they operate legally
tobacco, cigar and vape shops
licensed firearms dealers, ranges and gunsmiths
tattoo studios, piercing studios and barbers
bail bonds, debt advice, law firms and credit repair
nightclubs, casinos and other licensed gambling venues
adult-only venues and events that are not sexually explicit
churches, political campaigns, unions and advocacy groups
clinics, pharmacies, funeral homes and veterinary practices

What matters is whether the business is lawful where it operates and whether the website tells the truth. You are responsible for holding the licences your trade requires, and for following the law that applies to you.

Strong opinions, blunt language, criticism of a competitor by name, and subjects other people find distasteful are all allowed. We are not here to make every website agreeable.

How we enforce this

Two automatic checks run for everyone. The first reads your answers before the designer starts and refuses a brief that clearly asks for something above. The second reads every finished page before it goes live. Every part of every page must receive an explicit allow decision. If a check is unavailable or returns a hold, generation or publishing pauses so you can retry or request a review. A policy suspension blocks publishing until a super administrator releases it.

A note	For something small or accidental, we say what is wrong and give you a chance to change it.
Taken offline	A published site that breaks these rules stops being served straight away. Your pages stay in the studio so you can fix them.
Refused	The designer will not write a brief that clearly asks for something on this page. You will be told which rule and why.
Removed	A website can be deleted outright, with every version.
Account closed	An account can be closed and its websites removed. Reports involving a child are prioritised for human review. Account closure and any report to authorities require human action.

We look at what the website says and does, not at who the owner is. The same rules apply to every account, including our own.

Reporting a website

If a website built here breaks these guidelines, tell us at encontado.com/report. You do not need an account. Give the address of the page and say what is wrong, and we will look at it.

Reports involving a child are prioritised for human review. Automatic screening can refuse generation or publishing; taking an existing site offline, closing an account and reporting to authorities require human action.

A legal complaint, such as a copyright or defamation claim, should say who you are and what right you hold, so we can act on it.

If we get it wrong

Automatic checks make mistakes, and a refused brief is sometimes a perfectly good business. If that happens, submit an appeal from the account it happened on and explain the mistake. Your appeal and the review decision are kept with the review history. We would rather review a refusal than lose a real customer to one.