Red flags when choosing an SEO company

Guarantees

No one can guarantee a position in organic search results. Search engines do not sell them, and Google says so in its own documentation. A proposal that promises page one, a number-one position, or results by a fixed date is either misunderstanding the work or misrepresenting it. Some guarantees are constructed to be met cheaply: a top position for a query nobody searches, or for the business's own name. Ask instead for the company's stated expectation, in months, and for what happens to the fee if it is missed.

Anonymity

A company that will not say who will work on your account has something to manage. Sometimes it is that the work is outsourced; sometimes that the people on the sales call are not the people on the account; sometimes that the account will be one of forty for a junior. Criterion one on the criteria page asks for a named, accountable person. If the website has no names, ask for one on the call. If the call has no names either, stop.

Link schemes

A proposal that includes a number of backlinks per month at a fixed price, from sites you have never heard of, describes a link scheme. Buying links, exchanging them at scale, or placing them on networks built for the purpose is against Google's published spam policies and can cost a site its visibility rather than improve it. Links earned by publishing something worth linking to, or by asking sites that already mention the business, are slow and legitimate. Ask where the links will come from and why those sites would link.

Vanity reporting

A report that shows a rising line of rankings, or a large count of keywords “in the top 100”, and no line for enquiries, calls or sales, is designed to keep a retainer running rather than to tell you whether it is working. What an SEO report should show sets out the minimum. Ask to see a sample report before you sign, and look for the business-outcome line.

Lock-in contracts

A twelve-month minimum term with a long notice period, agreed before any work has shown a result, moves all the risk to the client. It is common, and it is a choice the company has made. SEO contracts and terms explains what a reasonable term looks like: one that ends around the company's own stated results timeline, and rolls monthly after that. Automatic renewal into a new fixed term is the same flag in a quieter form.

Their own house in disorder

An SEO company's own website and listings are its portfolio. Check them. If the name, address and phone number differ between the website, the Google Business Profile and directory listings, the company has not done for itself the first thing it will charge you for. If the site is slow, has no named people, no method and no pricing basis, then the six checks on the selection guide fail before the first call. The same applies to this reference's publisher: its own row on the comparison page is there to be checked, and the agency page records where it passes, where it is partial and where the reader must verify.

Two flags that are not flags

A small company is not a flag; some of the strongest work in Dublin comes from two-person firms. A high price is not a flag on its own; it may reflect scope. A company that does not rank first for “SEO company Dublin” is not a flag either, because the query is competitive and many good companies work on referrals. The flags on this page are all about what a company hides or promises, not about its size, its price or its own rankings.

What a good answer sounds like

Against each flag there is a reasonable answer. On guarantees: “We expect movement in three to six months; here is what we have seen for businesses like yours, with dates.” On anonymity: “This is the person who will run your account; here is their profile.” On links: “We earn them by publishing this and asking these people; here are examples.” On reporting: “Here is last month's report for a similar client, anonymised.” On contracts: “Rolling monthly, thirty days' notice.” On their own listings: everything matches. A company that gives those answers has passed most of the criteria on this site without being asked. Questions to ask before you sign turns them into a script.