10 Signs Your SEO Contractor Is Faking the Work: How to Check Without Technical Knowledge
You have been paying for SEO for six months. Every month a report arrives full of charts, on calls you hear "we're on it, results are coming," and leads from search are still nowhere to be seen. Below are ten signs that tell you whether any work is being done at all, and exactly what to ask your contractor on the next call. No technical knowledge required.
Why faking the work is the norm, not the exception
SEO is an easy field to fake for two reasons. First, results are delayed: "it's too early to judge" sounds plausible for six months, because for the first three or four months it genuinely is too early. Second, the client cannot verify the work with their own eyes: there seem to be texts on the site, there seem to be numbers in the report, but what actually moves rankings is anyone's guess.
Over 13 years I have taken over many sites after contractors like this. The pattern is almost always the same: a polished pitch at the start, two months of activity, then automated reports and silence. Here is what shows up in every one of those cases.
10 signs of fake SEO work
01The report has no data source
Screenshots of charts with no label saying where they come from. "Rankings up 15%" - according to which tool, for which keywords, in which region? A proper report is built on Search Console, Analytics and a specific rank tracker, and you can open that data yourself.
How to check: ask for access to Google Search Console. It is free and takes a minute. If they refuse, you can stop reading here.
02Rankings for keywords nobody searches
"We got you into the top 3 for 40 keywords." You look at the list and see things like "buy cheap natural oak laminate flooring AC5 grade Brovary." Two people a year search for that, and pages rank for such queries on their own. But the report gets a nice green table.
How to check: ask them to add a search volume column to the table. If most keywords get 0-10 impressions a month, the report was made for the sake of reporting.
03"We're working on your site" instead of a task list
Ask "what was done this month?" and you hear "we're optimizing, building links, working on keywords." That is not a list of work, it is a list of areas. Work looks like this: "rewrote the title tags on 30 category pages, here's the list; placed 4 articles, here are the links."
How to check: ask for a list of specific URLs where something changed this month. Open three of them and see whether anything actually changed.
04Search traffic has been flat for six months
The simplest and most honest metric. If the work is being done, organic traffic starts moving after 3-4 months, even in a tough niche. Six months of a flat line while you pay every month means either nothing is being done or the wrong things are.
How to check: in Google Analytics, open the "Organic Search" channel for the past year and compare it with the month before you started working together. Account for seasonality - compare September with September.
05Texts nobody can read
Open any page that was "optimized." If the first paragraph reads like "Buy cheap doors Kyiv - you can buy doors in Kyiv cheap at our door store," you are looking at a ten-year-old technique. Google no longer just ignores texts like that - it lowers its assessment of the whole site because of them.
How to check: read the text out loud. If it's embarrassing, it needs rewriting, not counting as completed work.
06Links from sites you would never show a customer
"We placed 20 links this month" sounds solid. Then you open the list: sites with no clear topic, casino ads in the sidebar, twenty languages in the menu. Links like these cost about a dollar apiece, and they don't just fail to help - in sufficient numbers they lead to penalties.
How to check: ask for the full list of sites where links were placed. Open five at random. Is there real content and real readers?
07The accounts belong to the contractor, not to you
Search Console is registered to the contractor's email. So is Analytics. Sometimes even the site's admin panel. It is not always malicious, but it is always a problem: if you part ways, you are left without your data history and without control over your own website.
How to check: log in to Search Console with your own email. If the site isn't there, you are not its owner as far as Google is concerned.
08The same report every month
Compare three consecutive monthly reports. If the structure, the wording and even the charts repeat and only the dates change, it is a template generated automatically. A real report reflects what was done that particular month and looks different each time.
How to check: put three reports side by side and try to spot five differences.
09No plan for next month
Real work is a cycle: review the results, understand what works, plan the next step. If the report always has "what we did" but never "what we do next and why," nobody is managing the work - it is just happening.
How to check: ask: "What are the three main tasks for next month, and why those?" The answer should be specific and different from last month's.
10"Why isn't it growing?" gets "the algorithm changed"
Algorithms really do update several times a year. But if every month without results is explained by a Google update, competition or seasonality - and never by their own mistakes or gaps - that is not analysis, it is an excuse. A specialist who is actually working can say: "here's what didn't work, here's what we're changing."
How to check: ask directly: "Which of the things we've done haven't produced results?" Hearing "everything is working, we just need to wait" after six months is a warning sign.
Recognized a few of these signs and want to know what has really been done?
I'll run an independent review: what was actually delivered during the contract, whether the site was harmed, and what to do next. No pressure to buy my services.
Message me on TelegramWhat a proper report looks like
So you have something to compare against, here is the minimum I consider mandatory in a monthly report.
| Section | What should be there | What fake work shows |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic | Organic traffic chart from Analytics or Search Console, compared with the previous period and with last year | A screenshot with no source, or total traffic lumped together with ads |
| Rankings | Target keywords with search volume, monthly change, mobile tracked separately | A list of dozens of keywords without volume, mostly long-tail |
| Work done | Specific URLs, what changed and why; links to new articles; list of linking sites | "Optimization was carried out," "link profile was built up" |
| Problems | What didn't work and what we're doing about it | No such section |
| Plan | 3-5 tasks for next month with the reasoning | The same text as a month ago |
A report can be short. One page with four numbers and a list of work is more useful than twenty pages of charts nobody reads.
Five questions for your next call
- Please give my email access to Search Console. The reaction to this request will tell you more than any report;
- Which five highest-volume keywords are we targeting right now, and where do they rank? Not forty - five, with numbers;
- Show me three pages that changed this month and explain exactly what changed. Not a list - on screen;
- What have we done over the last three months that didn't work? An honest answer always includes at least one item;
- If we stop working together tomorrow, what stays on the site? Texts, structure, links - everything should stay. If something "disappears," it was rented work, not delivered work.
What to do if you recognize your situation
Don't cut ties right away. First, take back the access: Search Console, Analytics, the site admin panel, the domain registrar. Everything should be on your email. Until it is, you are dependent.
Get an independent opinion. Not an "audit designed to sell services," but a review of one specific question: what was done over these months, and was the site harmed? Toxic links and keyword-stuffed texts will have to be cleaned up, and it is better to know about them before switching contractors, not after. I described what such a review covers in a separate article on SEO audits.
Choose the next contractor by different criteria. Not by price and not by the pitch deck. By case studies with numbers you can verify in third-party tools, by willingness to give you access from day one, and by whether they can explain what they will do and why. What a fair price looks like is covered in the article on SEO pricing, along with why cheap SEO ends up costing more.
Most importantly, don't conclude that "SEO doesn't work." Faking it doesn't work. Systematic work with verifiable numbers does, and there is no shortage of it on the market. You just need to tell the two apart.
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