Most bad SEO proposals do not look bad. They look professional, run to fourteen pages, and hide their problems in the boring sections nobody reads twice. The flags that cost the most are never the flashy ones.
Below are twelve things to look for, in the order they usually appear. Each includes the actual phrases to search for, because the wording is remarkably consistent across the industry. Open the PDF, press Ctrl+F, and check. Where Google has published its own position, it is quoted directly rather than paraphrased.
1. A ranking guarantee
Look for: “guaranteed #1”, “guaranteed page one”, “guaranteed first page in 90 days”, “top 3 rankings guaranteed”, “or your money back”.
Google’s guidance on hiring an SEO is unambiguous: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a ‘special relationship’ with Google, or advertise a ‘priority submit’ to Google.” It repeats the point as an instruction: “If they guarantee you that their changes will give you first place in search results, find someone else.”
Nobody controls the order of Google’s results, so the promise is either dishonest or engineered. Engineered is the common version: the guarantee is quietly attached to keywords nobody searches for. Page one for “cheap plumber springfield illinois reviews best” is a promise they can keep and you cannot use.
It is also a claim the FTC has litigated. In FTC v. Pointbreak Media, LLC (2018), defendants who cold-called small businesses claiming to represent Google were charged with falsely promising first-page placement, taking $300–$700 to “claim and verify” a listing and then upselling $949.99 up front plus $99.99–$169.99 a month for “guaranteed” top placement.
This is severity 3 in our rubric — RF-01. Do not sign it as written. A fair version guarantees work delivered and reporting, not positions. Targets and forecasts are fine when labelled as targets with the assumptions shown.
2. Deliverables with no quantities
Look for: “ongoing optimization”, “SEO improvements”, “content optimization”, “site improvements”, “monthly SEO work”, “as needed”, and — the classic — “up to 15 backlinks”.
“Up to 15” is, in practice, a quantity of zero. So is “as needed”. If you cannot count the deliverable at the end of the month, you can never claim they failed to deliver it, and the scope will quietly shrink around month three when the novelty wears off.
This is RF-02, and across the proposals we read it is the single most common problem. Fair wording has a number, a cadence and a definition of done: “4 articles per month, 1,200+ words, topics agreed in advance, published to your site.”
3. Bulk link packages and “high DA” pricing
Look for: “high DA links”, “DA 50+ backlinks”, “100 backlinks per month”, “private blog network”, “link package”, “guest post network”, “authority stacking”, or any per-link price far below market.
These are links placed on sites that exist to sell links. Google treats that as link spam, and the downside is not a refund — it is a penalty or a site-wide devaluation you pay somebody else to clean up later. Google’s own wording: “Avoid SEOs that talk about link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises.”
Note the second half of the problem: DA is a third-party vendor metric. Google does not use it, and says so plainly — “Google doesn’t evaluate or endorse third-party SEO tools, and these tools don’t have access to Google’s internal ranking data.” A proposal priced against DA is priced against a number the search engine never sees.
One more line worth memorising, because it catches a specific scheme: “You should never have to link to an SEO.” If the proposal requires a footer link back to the agency, that is a payment you did not agree to.
RF-03, severity 3. A fair version offers a small number of earned or editorially placed links per quarter, names the tactics (digital PR, supplier listings, associations, real sponsorships), and will show you the last five links they actually built for somebody.
4. Inflated keyword volumes
Look for: big round search volumes for niche local terms, volumes with no tool or date cited, “estimated traffic value $X”, keyword lists that add up to implausible traffic.
The business case for the retainer sits on these numbers. Global volume quoted as your town’s demand inflates the opportunity by 10 to 100 times — which is how a $3,000 a month retainer gets justified for a market worth $300.
RF-07. A fair version names the tool and the date, uses local volume for a local business, and states its assumptions about click-through and conversion.
5. A generic template, or a proposal you never asked for
Look for: your business name appearing only in the header. No competitors named. Nothing from your actual site mentioned. “In today’s digital landscape.” Another client’s name or industry left in by accident — this happens more than you would think.
They quoted you before they looked at you. Everything downstream — the keyword list, the deliverable mix, the price — was decided without evidence.
Check the origin too. If the proposal arrived after a cold email, Google’s position is blunt: “Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that email you out of the blue,” and it asks you to “reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for ‘burn fat at night’ diet pills.”
RF-08. The flag gets stronger when a quick look at your site finds obvious problems the proposal never mentions.
6. Reporting that measures nothing you care about
Look for: no reporting section at all; “monthly report” with no metrics named; or metrics limited to impressions, keyword rankings, domain authority, “work completed” and “hours spent”.
Impressions do not pay wages. If the report never shows calls, forms, bookings or revenue, you can be billed for years of visible “progress” while the phone stays quiet — and rankings can be reported against keywords chosen after the fact.
RF-06. A fair version names the metrics: organic sessions, conversions, leads or revenue where trackable, plus what was actually done that month. And you keep admin access to your own Google Analytics and Search Console. One nuance from Google’s guidance on the audit stage: “only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don’t grant them write access).” Read access is enough for anyone quoting you.
7. A minimum term longer than six months
Look for: “12-month minimum term”, “24-month agreement”, “minimum commitment of”, “remaining balance becomes due”, early-termination fees.
SEO genuinely does take months, and that argument is used to justify terms far longer than the work requires. A long minimum term transfers all the risk to you: if they underperform in month two, you still owe ten payments. Term length is a bet on their own confidence.
RF-04. A fair version is a three-month initial term to cover setup, then month-to-month with 30 days’ notice.
8. Silent auto-renewal
Look for: “automatically renew for a further 12 months”, “unless notice is given 60 days prior”, “shall renew on the same terms” — and check whether the clause lives in the summary or is buried in the terms.
The renewal date is one you will not be watching, and the notice window usually closes before you would think to cancel. This is how a business ends up in year three of an agreement it thought ended in year one.
RF-05, severity 3.
9. No cancellation clause at all
Look for: the absence of a “termination” or “cancellation” heading. Or termination described only for the agency’s benefit. Or “either party may terminate” with no notice period stated.
An absent clause is not a blank — it is a finding. If the document does not say how you get out, you negotiate your exit from zero while they hold your accounts and your content. Silence favours whoever holds the assets, and that is them.
RF-13, severity 3. Together with a long term (RF-04) and a silent renewal (RF-05), this is the trap: long term, automatic renewal, no stated way out. When two or more appear in the same document, the combination is the finding.
10. The agency owning your content, site, or Google Business Profile
Look for: “all content remains the property of [agency] until”, “we will create and manage the Google Business Profile”, “licensed to client for the duration of the agreement”, ad accounts under the agency’s manager account with no client admin, a site built on their platform.
This is the most expensive clause in SEO contracts. Leave, and you lose the articles you paid for, the reviews on your Business Profile, the ad history that makes your campaigns cheap, or the website itself. It is also what makes a long term enforceable in practice: you cannot afford to go.
The same logic applies to your domain. “We will register the domain on your behalf” or “hosting included, on our servers” means a billing dispute can become a site that is offline.
RF-09 and RF-14, both severity 3. Fair looks like this: domain, hosting, site, analytics, Search Console, ads and Google Business Profile all in your name from day one. The agency gets access, and access is revocable.
11. A “proprietary platform” fee, or a secretive method
Look for: “our proprietary SEO platform”, “$X/mo platform fee”, “dashboard access fee”, “required software licence”, “our proprietary process”, content that lives inside their CMS.
You are renting a dashboard. The fee usually buys a reskinned version of tools that cost a fraction of it, and when the work or the content lives inside their system, cancelling means losing it. This flag stacks with number 10 more often than not.
Secrecy is the related tell, and Google names it: “Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.”
RF-10. Internal tooling is their cost of doing business, not a line item on your invoice. A setup fee is fine — but only when a named deliverable is attached that you keep whether or not you continue (RF-11).
12. Pressure tactics
Look for: “this pricing is valid for 7 days”, “we only take 3 new clients per quarter”, “sign by Friday to lock in this rate”, “limited spots”, “your competitor is already talking to us”.
Real capacity constraints do not need a countdown. Urgency exists to stop you getting a second opinion. A price that evaporates in 72 hours was never the price.
RF-12. A fair quote has a sensible validity window — 30 days — and no consequence for taking your time.
The newer one: unverifiable AI-search claims
Not yet a numbered flag in our rubric, but now in most proposals: “AI search optimisation”, “GEO”, “guaranteed AI Overview citations”, “LLM visibility packages” — usually with a percentage attached and no source. Nobody can guarantee a citation in an AI answer, for the same reason nobody can guarantee a blue link. Google’s own suggested test for an SEO’s AI advice is whether “they cite official Google documentation as supporting evidence for their recommendations.” Apply it literally: ask for the documentation link behind every AI claim in the proposal. A provider who has one will send it in an hour.
Two things that are not red flags
Do not manufacture problems. A three-month initial term is reasonable. A real setup fee with a real deliverable is reasonable. Declining to guarantee rankings is a good sign. Disclosed subcontracting is fine — hidden subcontracting (RF-15) is the problem, because the people doing the work and the person accountable are then different from what you were sold.
And one thing that is easy to miss: anything promised out loud that does not appear in the document is not a deliverable. Write down what you were told on the call and check it against the PDF. That comparison alone turns a lot of “fair” proposals back into a negotiation.
If you think you were already sold one of these
Google’s page ends with a route most SEO blogs never mention: “In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit the FTC website to file a complaint online or call 1-877-FTC-HELP.” Complaints against a company outside the US go to econsumer.gov. It is free, it takes ten minutes, and the Pointbreak case above started with complaints like yours.
If you would rather have the document read properly before any of that becomes relevant, that is what the audit is for — one proposal, read line by line, with a written verdict in plain English.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO? — last updated 5 June 2026, CC BY 4.0. Source of every Google quote above.
- FTC, FTC Action Halts Deceptive Robocalls Aimed at Small Business Owners (May 2018) — FTC v. Pointbreak Media, LLC: false claims of representing Google and of first-page placement, with the fees quoted above.
- econsumer.gov — cross-border complaint route for non-US providers.
- The RF-01 to RF-17 identifiers are our own audit rubric, not an industry standard.