Cookies Policy

Last updated: August 2026

1. What Are Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of data a website asks your browser to store, typically to remember who you are between requests. This page explains exactly what Outrank Startups stores and why — nothing more than what's listed here.

2. Cookies We Use

• outrank_session — set only when you sign in or create an account. It's httpOnly (invisible to page scripts), expires after 7 days, and exists purely so the site knows you're logged in — it does not track you across other websites and carries no advertising identifier.
• outrank_admin_session — same as above, but set only for staff signing in at the (non-public) admin dashboard. Expires after 12 hours. You will never encounter this cookie as a regular visitor or startup founder.

Those are the only cookies Outrank Startups itself sets. If you never sign in (as a user or admin), no cookie is set by us at all. Both are strictly necessary to keep a signed-in session working and are never subject to the consent banner below.

3. What We Don't Use (Yet)

No advertising cookies and no cross-site tracking pixels. We don't currently run any analytics provider either — if we ever turn one on, it will load only after you accept it in the cookie banner shown on your first visit, never by default. Basic click counts on listings are recorded server-side against the listing itself (see our Privacy Policy), not via a cookie in your browser.

4. Third-Party Scripts & Cookies

PayU's checkout script loads only at the moment you actually start a boost payment — not on every page — and its embedded checkout frame may set its own cookies for fraud prevention and payment processing, governed by PayU's own privacy policy — Outrank Startups doesn't control what PayU's checkout sets.

This site also loads its typeface from Google Fonts on every page. Google doesn't set a cookie for this, but your browser does contact Google's servers directly, which can see your IP address for that request — see Google's Privacy Policy.

5. Managing Cookies

Both cookies we set are only present while you're signed in; signing out (or clearing your browser's cookies for this site) removes them immediately. Blocking cookies entirely just means you'll be signed out — the public leaderboard, listings, and every other page work the same either way.

6. Your Consent Choice

On your first visit, a banner lets you accept or decline optional analytics. Your choice is stored in your browser only (not sent to us as a cookie) and you can change it at any time by clearing your browser's local storage for this site, which brings the banner back.

7. Changes to This Policy

If we ever add analytics or advertising cookies in the future, this page will be updated to say so before that happens, not after.