Terms of service link: Crawl Audit check 129

Short answer: if you sell anything online, your terms set out what the customer gets, what they pay, and what happens if something goes wrong. Linking them from the footer makes them easy to find before anyone buys. Check 129 warns when the page has no link to terms.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Pass: a link whose address contains "terms", "tos" or "conditions".
• Warning: none.

A site that sells nothing may not need terms at all, so treat this warning in context.

What the rules say (UK)

• The E-commerce Regulations 2002: where you provide terms and conditions for a contract, you "shall make them available to him in a way that allows him to store and reproduce them". A normal web page the customer can save or print does that.
• The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013: for sales to consumers at a distance, the required information must be given "in a clear and comprehensible manner".

What terms usually cover

• Who the seller is, and how to contact you.
• What's being sold, the price, and how payment works.
• Delivery or timescales, cancellation and refunds, including any guarantee (check 124).
• Limits of liability, and which country's law applies.

Write them for the business you actually run. Copied terms often promise things you don't do, or leave out what you do.

This is a summary, not legal advice.

Sources

• legislation.gov.uk, E-commerce Regulations 2002, regulation 9 and Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regulation 13, checked 6 October 2026.