# Projects and markets

> What a project holds, how its market drives every tool, and how archiving works.

Source: https://docs.indexzero.site/guides/projects



A project is the unit everything else hangs off: research, trackers, audits, integrations, and credit attribution are all per project. Your workspace starts with one project named "Default".

## What a project holds [#what-a-project-holds]

| Field  | Notes                                                                                                                                                                      |
| ------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Name   | 1 to 80 characters.                                                                                                                                                        |
| Domain | Optional at creation, but required before audits, rank tracking, and own-site backlink tools will work. Entered as a bare domain; a pasted URL is reduced to its hostname. |
| Market | A location and a language. United States and English by default.                                                                                                           |

Name and domain are edited on the project's **Settings** page. The market is chosen when the project is created and can be overridden per call.

## How the market works [#how-the-market-works]

Every research tool takes an optional `locationCode` and `languageCode`. When you leave them out, the project's market is used, so a project set to Germany and `de` gets German volumes and German SERPs without repeating that on every call. Pass them explicitly to look at a different country for one query.

Two things to know about markets:

* **Location and language must be a valid pair.** The dashboard's market picker snaps the language to the chosen country's default because the provider rejects a mismatched pair as a failed, charged task.
* **Some countries have less data.** Keyword difficulty and search intent come from a dataset that covers 94 countries. Elsewhere, keyword data comes from Google Ads and has volume and CPC but no difficulty or intent, and clickstream refinement has no effect.

## Limits [#limits]

Active (non-archived) projects are capped per plan: <PlanValue plan="free" field="maxProjects" /> on Free, <PlanValue plan="starter" field="maxProjects" /> on Starter, <PlanValue plan="pro" field="maxProjects" /> on Pro, <PlanValue plan="scale" field="maxProjects" /> on Scale. Creating one past the cap fails with a plan-limit error that names the cap.

## Archiving [#archiving]

Projects are archived, not deleted. Archiving frees the slot; the project's data stays and it can be restored from the **Archived** tab on the projects page. You cannot archive your last active project.

## In the dashboard [#in-the-dashboard]

Each project has its own sidebar: Dashboard; Research (Keyword Research, Domain Overview, Backlinks, Local SEO); My Site (Rank Tracking, Saved Keywords, Site Audit); AI Search (SAM, AI Visibility, Prompt Explorer); Connect (Search Console, Analytics, AI & MCP); and Project Settings. The dashboard page shows an activation checklist until you have added a site, researched keywords, created a tracker, run an audit, connected Search Console, and connected an agent.