Backlink Transparency with SEO Agency

[wonderd24]

Hello everyone. I recently started working with an SEO agency and today they gave me an updated keyword report which showed some increase in rankings. I was not aware that any backlinks had been created yet so I asked for a report of the links. Their response is below and I am just wondering if this is normal practice being I have not worked with any type of SEO agency yet.

"
Hey Daniel,

We release a small report on them which the guest blog team will do soon. We don't reveal all backlink sources unfortunately because people have tried to bother the webmasters we have and basically steal our techniques.

But rest assured you will be ranking at the top of the pack with our methods   
"

[donsilvernail]

Hello,

You can use moz's link explorer to reveal the back links https://analytics.moz.com/pro/link-explorer/home

If they are good quality they usually show up in the index but not always. Another area you can check is google search console.

I do not think it is common practice to give a backlinks report upon request. They may not want to reveal their sources. But this information should not be private to a client. The contract should govern any information that is shared.

Thanks,

Don

[wonderd24]

There was no contract between me and the agency. It is month to month.

[donsilvernail]

There should be some sort of contract.

You are sharing your private information with the agency and vice versa. Also the contract will govern what services the agency provides and what you can expect from their services. If they write content for your site, the contract will govern who owns that contract.

It is my opinion that you may want to get out of this deal before you are in to deep. They are already shady with a backlinks report. This is only my opinion.

Thanks,

Don

[wonderd24]

Thanks for the feedback. Anyone else want to chime in on this?

[willcritchlow]

This doesn't ring true to me because:

1. There are all kinds of ways you can find links to your site (referring traffic in GA, link analysis sources like moz's own tools, ahrefs, majestic etc, and tools like Google Alerts)
2. You've already got the link in these cases, so you would have no incentive to "bother" the webmasters
3. In general, my experience has been that most providers want to tell you about as many placements as they can!

Add to this some of the phrasing (e.g. "webmasters we have" -- emphasis mine) suggests that there may be payments taking place or other schemes afoot that place these well outside the Google guidelines.

Per the conversation in the other comments - I would recommend that you get at least a statement of work in place to govern what you are expecting for the money you are paying even if you are not committing to a long-term contract. This could include agreements on any of the above (what information they will provide you with, what you will do with that information etc). At the very least, you should want to understand the techniques in use in order to make your own informed decisions about the risks and rewards.

Hope that helps.