SEO Master accounts?

[Buddys]

We just got off the phone with our current SEO/ SEM provider and was shocked to hear that we are essentially renting the FB pages and Google + pages we paid them to create for our 100+ locations. We were told that all the pages have been created under a "Master SEO" account and we would immediately lose any juice from these pages if they are not under their account. He claimed the pages were given their rankings because the account they are associated with vs. the actual SEO done.

Can anyone shed some light on this claim. I have never heard of such a thing.

[MikeRoberts]

That sounds to me like they're holding your accounts hostage and/or telling you that your pages are being linked to as part of a linking scheme under their control which would no longer point said links to your social pages if you left them. You should definitely have them elaborate a little further on what a "Master SEO account" is because it sounds like BS.

[anthonydnelson]

Facebook pages and G+ pages can both be transferred over (just create new admins). Also- I'm not even sure what "losing juice from these pages" even means. Do the pages rank well? Have a lot of followers? None of those things would change if they gave you control.

Sounds like you need to shop around for a new provider. You don't want to pay a company long-term that is in it for themselves over a company that is in it for you.

[Buddys]

Hi Anthony,

The pages rank on 1st page if you enter the specific long tail keywords that are part of the name the provider used to name each FB page.

I am by no stretch an expert at SEO, but it seems to be the reasons these pages rank because of Facebook and the page title. There is zero useful content posted and the provider insisted it was unnecessary for SEO purposes. Another red flag?

The provider flat out said all the FB pages they created would drop off the SERPS in two days if they give us control.

I agree that we need to shop for a new provider. Thanks for the input!

[Buddys]

Hi Mike,

Long story, short. I started monitoring the pages because the provider had a really strange answer when we asked them what sort of "maintenance" was being done each month on our FB pages and Google+ pages when we didn't see the content change.

We were told that they were optimizing the pages each month to rank well on SERPS and it was all backend-not visible, but required high level of expertise.

Well, I have been monitoring the pages for 2 months now and nothing has changed with the exception of the cover photo that we provided. They said the account used to create the pages had some sort of special authority (ranking juice) that gave them better results than the average user. I think it is BS too. It is starting to feel like I need to be an expert in order to keep this "expert provider" honest.

Thanks for taking the time to comment!