Backlink Transparency with SEO Agency
-
Hello everyone. I recently started working with an SEO agency and today they gave me an updated keyword report which showed some increase in rankings. I was not aware that any backlinks had been created yet so I asked for a report of the links. Their response is below and I am just wondering if this is normal practice being I have not worked with any type of SEO agency yet.
"
Hey Daniel,We release a small report on them which the guest blog team will do soon. We don't reveal all backlink sources unfortunately because people have tried to bother the webmasters we have and basically steal our techniques.
But rest assured you will be ranking at the top of the pack with our methods
" -
This doesn't ring true to me because:
- There are all kinds of ways you can find links to your site (referring traffic in GA, link analysis sources like moz's own tools, ahrefs, majestic etc, and tools like Google Alerts)
- You've already got the link in these cases, so you would have no incentive to "bother" the webmasters
- In general, my experience has been that most providers want to tell you about as many placements as they can!
Add to this some of the phrasing (e.g. "webmasters we have" -- emphasis mine) suggests that there may be payments taking place or other schemes afoot that place these well outside the Google guidelines.
Per the conversation in the other comments - I would recommend that you get at least a statement of work in place to govern what you are expecting for the money you are paying even if you are not committing to a long-term contract. This could include agreements on any of the above (what information they will provide you with, what you will do with that information etc). At the very least, you should want to understand the techniques in use in order to make your own informed decisions about the risks and rewards.
Hope that helps.
-
Thanks for the feedback. Anyone else want to chime in on this?
-
There should be some sort of contract.
You are sharing your private information with the agency and vice versa. Also the contract will govern what services the agency provides and what you can expect from their services. If they write content for your site, the contract will govern who owns that contract.
It is my opinion that you may want to get out of this deal before you are in to deep. They are already shady with a backlinks report. This is only my opinion.
Thanks,
Don
-
There was no contract between me and the agency. It is month to month.
-
Hello,
You can use moz's link explorer to reveal the back links https://analytics.moz.com/pro/link-explorer/home
If they are good quality they usually show up in the index but not always. Another area you can check is google search console.
I do not think it is common practice to give a backlinks report upon request. They may not want to reveal their sources. But this information should not be private to a client. The contract should govern any information that is shared.
Thanks,
Don
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Web 2.0 Backlinks
Hi Normal Web 2.0 websites like Wordpress.com, blogger.com have very High DA and PA. But when we create a subdomain, DA and PA falls to 1 as Google treats subdomain as new websites. Does it make any sense then to get backlinks from web 2.0 websites? will it help in Google rankings?
Link Building | | aliasgarbabat1234567890 -
Best backlink reading 101
Hi all New to MOZ and SEO. I run a small business and am interested in building backlinks and was wondering what the best reading material/articles are on the matter. I understand SEO in general, moreover the importance of Pagerank, and was wondering what a good approach would be to building a foundation or intro to this. Thanks in advance Joe
Link Building | | JoeJenkins0 -
Sudden spike in backlinks - should we disavow?
A kitchen remodelling firm in Australia has noticed a big increase in spammy backlinks to their website since April this year. Majestic shows that referring domains and backlinks during that period have gone up from 400 domains (10,000 links) to 1,070 domains (47,000+ links). About 100 are sitewide links. The vast majority are "follow" links directed at image files on the site - ending in .jpg. Ahrefs now shows the number one anchor text (23%) is a period (full stop) "." Most of the links come from .us domains, eg: cowboysr.us
Link Building | | Adab1
blackphoto.us
alldpic.com Google Search Console isn't showing any of these links, there's no penalty on the site and there's been no noticeable change in rankings (if anything organic clicks went up over May, June, July) ... so we're wondering what action - if any - should be taken. Are these links likely to have a negative impact on the site and homepage? Should we disavow these links? Appreciate any advice. Thanks.0 -
How to maximize a quality backlink?
Just noticed a huge spike on one of our How To articles and found that a Lifehacker article used our article as a reference and linked back to it. Is there anything I can to to maximize the link juice from this backlink?
Link Building | | mr_w1 -
How do stop lost backlinks from website?
I have checked my backlinks through ahref tool. Daily some backlinks are removed bases of ahref tool, so how can stop removing backlink of my website. Please suggest me.
Link Building | | surabhi60 -
Backlink Audit
Hello, I have a quick question for the MOZ readers about my companies current backlink audit. We've noticed many of the backlinks that the Google Webmaster Tool has found come from websites that are no longer in existence or have error messages. Are these websites counting negatively against us or should we ignore them? Thanks! Alex Rubin
Link Building | | PlanetDISH0 -
Does Spelling and Grammar Effect SEO?
I have heard conflicting reports on this, so I wanted to double check. Will poorly written posts and articles affect my rankings in SEO regards. I'm just unsure because on some sites i'v been working on recently I have seen some drops thanks.
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
Should we fire our SEO Vendor?
Dear SeoMozers, We are working on ranking towards some hyper competitive keywords (each query has millions of searches a month) and working with an external SEO Vendor. We were not satisfied with the progress, therefore we asked them to send a revised SEO Plan. Here's what they proposed: 1. On Page Optimization (standard techniques) Off Page Optimization 1. Directory Submissions (100) 2. Article Marketing (Two unique 300 word articles to be submitted to 300 directories) 3. Press Release (Two Press Releases to 100 PR Sites) 4. Classified Ads Submissions 5. Business Listings 6. Link Reinforcement (Create wheel to circulate traffic) 7. Blog Submissions, Commenting, Forum Posting 8. Web 2.0 Link Building (Squidoo Lens, Hub Page, Link Wheel etc) 9. One Way Links (Not Specified how many) Our concern is that this sounds like low quality link building. We've given them 19 top keywords to achieve rankings for and will be paying $20-25K to achieve Top 3-5 rankings for the targeted terms. Do you think this strategy would work or should we change the SEO Vendor?
Link Building | | globaleyeglasses1