I recently took on the services of a firm to provide SEO for my site. They just told me today that they dont provide reports on incoming links to my site as the linkbuilders prefer to keep their practices private. The traffic to the site has been increasing steadily however I feel somewhat uneasy about the lack of transparency of what these linkbuilders are actually doing. Am I wrong to insist that they should show me a monthly report of incoming links or is this just standard practice?
Don't be, most firm would not give you incoming report, so does some of BST sellers, some dont come with report, you can analyze dthe link by going to majestic seo and create a report which will show you where your incoming links are coming from.
Well , it depends on what you signed for , if since the beginning they said there will be no report you can't really complaint now . The only way that I think may help you to convince them is if their service is based on number of links ( 20 bookmarks, 1000 pr3 links , 2000 pr2 links , etc....) you can then use the tracking argument to see what you are paying for , but if the service just said that they will raise you on serps , I don t really see how you can convince them ...
A lot of companies won't give reports because they're worried that people will just come a long and do it them selves. If they didn't state that they won't be giving a report before you paid them, then I don't think that's fair personally. Usually the people that don't offer reports are the ones using private blog networks to get rankings, so it's to protect the blog network and there other clients too if you get where I'm coming from.
I always provide the links to my client's sites, but don't provide all of the 3rd level links - i.e. links to level 2 sites to improve rankings of those sites.
Thats exactly what I do my self I only give them the Tier 1 links. The Dark One - Also if you want to see what kind of backlinks you are getting you could use SEO spyglass as that should pick up the links that they have created for you.
In any professional deal I'd say it's fair to get a list of what was actually done. That said, if it's a service from here, I could also see it being fair not to provide everything, otherwise it's disclosing the suppliers methods. I think if it's a bog standard agency however, you're well well within your rights to know.
I personally don't provide links to offline clients for a number of reasons: 1) Doesn't show the true value of your service. Some months you may build fewer but many more higher quality links.... lets say you build 20, do you think this would justify your monthly fee and your expertise? Most "offline" clients don't understand the value of SEO and understand how it works.... Many think links links links, which isnt the answer as we know 2) Once you have given them the report of the links, the client can sometimes say "those aren't high quality links"... What is deemed quality and acceptable is different from person to person. This can cause problems 3) You should base your SEO service on RESULTS. I promise all my clients that month after month, they will see a ranking increase. I send them monthly ranking reports and also tell them my views on the current ranks and what I perceive to happen next month. I never disclose what I do, however ensure I always make sure their rankings improve by a significant amount. So if they are improving traffic/revenue and rankings by a good amount each month (not just a few places), I wouldn't worry too much about what they are/are not doing. You can usually find most links being built via majestic or ahrefs if you really wanted to check them out.
I don't think you should be worried as most seo firm doesn't like to disclose their techniques but i would suggest you to keep an eye on your backlinks been built using some software or sites like majestic seo(i personally been using for me & my clients for quite a while now & i think its one of the best when it comes to back link analysis) on a daily basis just in case if they are indeed doing something fishy!Its better to be cautious then felling sorry after shit happens!
I have several local and national clients cross the country. I suppl ranking reports but never supply linking data. RESULTS will say enough.
Like a lot of people are already pointing to, most clients care about results. Giving away their bread and butter (aka technique) isn't part of the deal. All you're really paying for is movement, not for the recipe.
This is a great answer, +REP and +THANKS for you... Most clients don't understand the true value of links, or the quality of links, which is exactly why they are hiring an SEO service to begin with. SEO service providers don't need to deliver link reports, and that should be transparent from day one. The goal of a client is to rank higher in Google, and as long as the company isn't mass blasting your site with Xrumer and Scrapebox then the linkbuilding techniques can be somewhat proprietary. Remember your goal with hiring an SEO company was so that you could rank higher in Google, and thus receive more traffic. How they get you there shouldn't be that important to you. Keep in mind if you are really that worried, you can always use backlink checking tools to find out how they are backlinking your website such as Ahrefs, MajesticSEO, etc.
Yeah, I too would suggest they should at least be reporting on the tier 1 links. I wouldn't report on the tier 2 or 3 links, as they're not going to look very desirable!
What Dn100 said is spot on. Anyone in the business of selling SEO services needs to follow his advice in this regard. And one other reason not to do so is that a boatload of SEO customers actually outed their SEO service providers during the Panda/Penguin crisis. What did they use? They used their provider's branded SEO reports as proof pudding.
Does the traffic increase? if so, how about the conversion rate? Ultimately, does the service bring you a reasonable profit? I would think these are more important than where the links are.
Its quite normal that an SEO Company does not disclose their link sources, believe me if you were in their shoes, you would do the same! And if you REALLY want to find the links they are building just use one of the hundreds of Link Exploring tools out there!
Besides, a lot of SEO firms resell private blog links, and often the owners of the those blog networks don't provide link reports themselves, so a lot of firms don't even know where the links are at.
