Website statistics and advertising measurement

ShiftyMechanics uses privacy-conscious, first-party statistics and offers an optional Meta Pixel choice to understand whether the website, repair calculator and advertising are useful.

What is counted

We count anonymous browser sessions, page views and broad actions such as using the main calculator button, completing an estimate, comparing a quote, searching for a mechanic, using a share or copy button, clicking an advertisement or clicking the sponsorship email link. Mechanic-search totals are also grouped by whether the search began in the homepage finder or after an estimate. Page-view totals are grouped by page path, referring website host, broad visitor country supplied by the hosting network and broad device type derived from the browser user-agent. Signed-in owner activity and common bots or automated browsers are excluded.

For completed estimates, we count the selected country, listed vehicle make and model, five-year model-year band, powertrain, vehicle type and repair category. Custom make or model text is recorded only as “Other”.

How sessions stay anonymous

Your browser creates a random session code and keeps it in temporary session storage. It rotates after 30 minutes of inactivity. ShiftyMechanics stores only a one-way hash of that random code and the session start day, solely to count repeat activity accurately. A mechanic-search session is counted once for each finder it uses, not as an identified person. Old hashes are pruned after they fall outside the rolling reporting window when analytics next runs.

Calculator security

Calculator requests are processed on the ShiftyMechanics server so the pricing tables are not sent to your browser. To deter automated harvesting and abuse, requests from recognised bots are rejected and each network address is limited to 30 calculations in a ten-minute period. The raw address is not stored in the calculator database; it is converted with a secret-keyed one-way process into a short-lived request bucket that is automatically pruned.

What is not stored

The first-party analytics statistics do not store your name, email address, phone number, IP address, exact location, suburb or town, GPS coordinates, quote amount, estimated price, custom vehicle text or a persistent visitor identifier. Apart from the temporary calculator-security bucket described above, ShiftyMechanics does not store network addresses and does not use fingerprinting.

Location and external links

If you type a location or use your device location, it is handled in your browser to help create a nearby-mechanic search. ShiftyMechanics does not add it to its analytics. If you choose to open the search, Google Maps receives the location and selected country you typed, or your device coordinates. Google's privacy terms then apply.

How the information is used

Daily totals are combined into aggregate reports to improve vehicle coverage, repair estimates, website usability and advertising decisions. They are not used to identify or profile individual visitors.

Advertising

ShiftyMechanics may display clearly labelled advertising supplied by Google AdSense. Advertising is kept separate from the calculator inputs, repair-cost ranges, guides and recommendations, and we do not ask visitors to click advertisements.

Google and its partners may use cookies or other identifiers to serve and measure ads in line with their own policies and privacy controls. You can read more about how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

Optional Meta Pixel

The Meta Pixel loads only if you select “Allow Meta Pixel”. When allowed, ShiftyMechanics sends Meta a PageView event so we can measure visits from Facebook and Instagram advertising and improve audience targeting. Meta receives information normally sent with a web request, including the page address, browser and device information, and network address, and may set or read cookies or similar identifiers under its own privacy terms.

ShiftyMechanics does not send your calculator selections, repair estimate, typed location, device coordinates, contact details or custom vehicle text to Meta as custom events. Automatic event configuration is disabled. You can change your choice below at any time; declining prevents further Meta Pixel events from this browser.

You can read the Meta Privacy Policy for more information.

Contact

Questions about privacy can be sent to admin@shiftymechanics.com.

Selecting the email address opens a draft in your email app. Nothing is sent until you press Send, and ShiftyMechanics cannot confirm from the website whether an email was sent or delivered.