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
-
Outreach for backlinks
What are some of the best ways to reach out for back links? The goal is to get a link from their website to our root or an anchored text but what are some techniques and options to consider to make it beneficial for both parties?
Link Building | | Cfarcher0 -
SEMrush Backlink Damaging SEO?
I did a test recently with a sponsored article for some of my products, including my most popular product (https://www.spaceanswers.com/sponsored/sponsored-wear-a-piece-of-the-universe-with-the-space-collectives-meteorite-jewellery/) and it just so happens that recently this very product dropped from 2nd position to 51+, I have since managed to restore it to 6th position but I am wondering if this article is damaging my efforts? SEMrush is showing a page score of 4/100 and a trust score of 3/100, which is obviously very low. Is this helping or hurting my SEO?
Link Building | | moon-boots0 -
Is there any BAD SEO implications to acquiring backlinks from customers?
What would be the negative aspects to sending customer's requests for a backlink in conjunction with asking how their experience with us was? Backlinks are one of the toughest for our niche industry to acquire and this seems like one of the best angles to cover, since we have .edu , .mil , .gov , and many bigname companies making purchases from us. Would if be wrong to offer a small 5% discount during their next purchase if they create a backlink with us? Or if we added a " Customer's we've served " section including their logo or text link? Thank you! I hope you're all having an awesome day / week / month!
Link Building | | Deacyde1 -
Backlinks from archived content? SEO penalty?
I'm curious, if I go to webmasters and suggest a change to an article in their archives (convincing them that the new link offers more value to their readers), how would Google look at that? It seems to me that if a two-year-old article all of a sudden gets a new link, it might look fishy, and might even bring penalties with it. Thoughts?
Link Building | | JABacchetta0 -
Backlink Building Places
Where can I go to get follow backlinks to my site to improve my DA and PA, etc?
Link Building | | sansonj0 -
Seo using images
I have a client that creates a lot of custom jewelry and takes pictures of it. They've been reluctant to part with it for fear of competitors stealing their designs, but I was able to finally wrastle them into submission and get them to release 30+ original images. I had some ideas about it, but I was wondering if you guys could help me brainstorm doing some linkbuilding using these images. 1. tag them all on pinterest 2. create a slideshow using them and upload to slidesharing sites 3. create a flickr account and upload all the images 4. search for other image/slideshare gallery sites and upload to them. (I welcome any suggestions regarding this). Any other suggestions for submissions? I was also thinking of creating some written content around each image. What type of web properties would be best for for example a FAQ about custom made emerald rings, or other types of jewelry.
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
Frustrated with spammy backlinks from competitors
I've only been doing SEO for my company for the last month and I've made some headway but what is really frustrating me right now is a couple of competitors that have OBVIOUS spammy links ranking in the number 1,2,3 stops all over the board for the keywords i'm going for. One competitor in particular has anchor text links EVERYWHERE that make absolutely no sense...junk like... "I have never been more saddened by anything in my life than when my grandfather got cancer. I told my uncle he needed to buy some auto insurance. I really like pork." I mean, these links are the pages with the most page authority and page rank out of all of the ones they have...and I'd venture to say that almost all of their backlinks are like this...well, half of them are just random links with good anchor text on the sidebar of a bazillion spam websites (diapers, toys, fake blogs, etc.)...while i have about 3k links and most of my top competitors have about 5k links...these guys have over 33k. Worse yet, when I look at something like Alexa rank, they have pretty high overall traffic rank but it shows traffic rank in MX (mexico) instead of the US...these guys only sell in the US! I mean, they're black hat if I've ever seen such a thing and they rank superbly on all keywords. What can I do to compete with this junk?
Link Building | | jgower0 -
Forex SEO resources
Hi, We are currently in the process of launching a value-added service website for Forex traders. We have done on-page optimizations and are climbing up the rankings for both Google and Bing. We have first page and top three rankings for most of the easier keywords we optimized for. Thus I think we have stretched our on-page SEO to it's limits and are now considering our off-page strategy. Does anyone here have experience with the Forex space? Can anyone point me to important SEO resources specific to this space? Thank you!
Link Building | | Eladla0