Hiring an SEO? How to Spot a Dodgy One

A dodgy SEO and a good one can quote almost the same monthly figure, which is exactly the problem. What actually separates them is not the price, it is what happens to your site once they start work, and Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO is blunter about the risk than most agencies will ever be to your face.

How do you tell a good SEO from a dodgy one?

Ask the questions Google itself recommends putting to anyone before you sign anything, and watch closely for the answers it names as warning signs. Google's guidance on whether you need an SEO exists because it has watched the same pattern for years: a business pays for a promise nobody could actually keep, and the clean-up afterwards costs more than the original quote did. A short list of specific questions tells you more than a gut feeling about whether someone sounds trustworthy on the phone.

What does Google's own guidance actually say?

Its page for anyone weighing this up states plainly that hiring an SEO "can potentially improve your site's visibility and save you time", but adds that "you can also risk damage to your site and reputation" by picking the wrong one. It also settles one thing outright: "Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results." Anyone pitching a paid route into Google's index, rather than a paid effort to improve where you sit within it, is describing something that does not exist.

What should you ask before anyone touches your site?

Google's own list is short enough to put to someone directly, and worth copying into an email before you commit to anything:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work, and can I check them myself? A live site you can click through beats a screenshot in a slide deck.
• Do you follow Google's own Search Essentials? A straight yes, with an explanation of what that means in practice, is a better sign than a shrug.
• What kind of results do you expect, and in what timeframe? A specific, hedged answer beats a confident one.
• What's your experience in my industry and my area? Local and trade knowledge is not essential, but a confident answer is easy to check against their own client list.
• Will you tell me every change you make to my site, as you make it? If the answer is no, or vague, you are being asked to trust work you will never get to see.

What red flags does Google name outright?

Its guidance is unusually direct about the tells: be wary of anyone who emails you out of the blue offering SEO work, be careful if a company is secretive or will not clearly explain what it intends to do, and avoid anyone who talks about link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. Above all, if someone guarantees that their changes will put you in first place, Google's own advice is to find someone else. None of these are borderline cases. Each one is Google naming the exact pitch to walk away from.

What actually happens if an SEO buys links for your site?

Google's own spam policies name "buying or selling links for ranking purposes" as a clear violation, covering money, goods or services exchanged for links that pass ranking credit. A site that breaks this "may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all". A link bought and properly marked as nofollow or sponsored does not pass ranking credit and is not the problem here. One bought quietly to look like a genuine recommendation is. If Google's systems flag it, the notice lands in Search Console's Manual Actions report against your site, whether or not you knew the SEO had done it.

So is paying for SEO ever worth it?

Genuinely, yes, when the work is the ordinary and slightly dull kind: a site that loads properly, is written for the person reading it, and a Google Business Profile kept accurate and current. None of that needs a special relationship with Google, because none exists to have. This decision sits inside the wider set of choices covered in what a website actually costs and who to trust with it, and the same discipline that applies to a website quote applies here too: get it itemised, get more than one, and ask what each part is actually for.

ByRender builds the website itself rather than running search campaigns, so this decision sits outside what we sell either way, which is exactly why we can say it plainly. If you want to see what the basics look like already done properly, before you have to pay anyone for the rest, have a look at what we have rendered for other local businesses or start your own preview before anything is owed.

Frequently asked questions

Can an SEO guarantee me a number one ranking on Google?

No, and Google's own guidance says so plainly: no one can guarantee a number one ranking. Any pitch claiming a special relationship with Google, or a 'priority submit' service, is exactly the sort of promise that guidance warns against.

Is paying for backlinks against the rules?

Yes. Google's spam policies name buying or selling links for ranking purposes as a violation, and a site built on them may rank lower or not appear in results at all. That applies to your site as well as to whoever bought the links on your behalf, whether or not you knew the detail.

How would I know if my site had already been penalised?

A manual action from Google shows up as a message in Search Console's Manual Actions report, free to check once you have the account set up. It is the same account covered in our guide to checking whether your website is working at all.