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How to Choose an SEO Agency: Google's Own Checklist

October 4, 2026·14 min read
A man in his early thirties in a rust-colored knit sweater sits at a long wooden table in the back room of a small coffee roastery, reading a printed proposal with a pen in hand, warm lamp light on his face and cool daylight from the window behind

To choose an SEO agency, interview it with the questions Google publishes for exactly that decision, give it read-only access to your data, and end the conversation as soon as someone guarantees a ranking. Google keeps that checklist on a page called "Do you need an SEO?", last updated on 5 June 2026, and it now covers agencies that sell AI search work too.

Most pages that rank for this question are published by agencies that sell the service. That does not make them wrong, but it makes one document worth reading first: the one written by the company that does the ranking. This article sticks to five Google documents, all read on 4 October 2026, and says so when they are silent. (SEO, search engine optimization, is the work of making a site easier to find in search results.)

TL;DR

  • Google's hiring checklist lives on its "Do you need an SEO?" page, and opens with "Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?"
  • During an audit, give read access, not ownership. Google's words: "only grant read access to Search Console".
  • "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." A guarantee, a "special relationship" with Google or a "priority submit" ends the call.
  • AEO and GEO are not a separate discipline in Google's view: optimizing for generative AI search is "still SEO".
  • You carry the risk: "you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire". Ask how the content is produced and where the links come from.

Table of contents

First, decide whether you need an agency at all

Google's page opens with a warning that cuts both ways. Hiring someone "can potentially improve your site's visibility and save you time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation."

It then says something few agencies write on their own site: "If you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work yourself." The suggested starting point is Google's SEO starter guide, and the reason given is useful even if you hire later: knowing the basics lets you notice when someone "wants to use a technique that's not recommended or, worse, strongly discouraged."

The same page names the best moments to hire: "when you're considering a site redesign (the earlier, the better), or planning to launch a new site." A redesign is where one technical mistake costs the most, so it is where outside expertise is cheapest relative to the damage it prevents.

Before you call anyone, write down which services you are actually buying. Google lists what agencies and consultants usually provide:

  • a review of your site content or structure
  • technical advice (hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript)
  • content development
  • management of online business development campaigns
  • keyword research
  • SEO training
  • expertise in specific markets and geographies
  • optimizing for generative AI

A quote that does not map onto that list is hard to compare with the next one. And one more line from the page saves money: "Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results." Buying ads and buying SEO are two separate decisions.

The questions Google tells you to ask

Google's advice is to interview a potential SEO, and it gives the questions word for word:

  1. "Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?"
  2. "Do you follow the Google Search Essentials?" (the rulebook formerly called the Webmaster Guidelines)
  3. "What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?"
  4. "What's your experience in my industry?"
  5. "What's your experience in my country/city?"
  6. "What's your experience developing international sites?"
  7. "How long have you been in business?"
  8. "How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?"

The list ends with a test that runs the other way: "See if the SEO is interested in you and your business." A good candidate asks you "what makes your business unique, who your competitors are, how search results can help, and how your customers find you." If the first call is a pitch with no question about your customers, you have your answer.

Google also tells you to "Check your SEO's business references", by asking past clients whether the work "provided useful service, was easy to work with, and produced positive results." Ask for a past client you can actually contact, not only a case study page.

How to choose an SEO agency on the first call: a scorecard

The table below turns Google's documents into something you can keep open during the call. The middle column quotes Google; the right column is the answer that, according to those same documents, should make you look elsewhere.

Ask this What Google's documents say Answer that should end the call
Can you guarantee a ranking? "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." Any guarantee of first place, a "special relationship" with Google, a "priority submit"
What access do you need for the audit? "only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don't grant them write access)" A request for owner rights before any scope is signed
Which Google documentation supports this recommendation? "Do they cite official Google documentation as supporting evidence for their recommendations?" "Our tool says so", or a tool sold as approved by Google
What does your AEO or GEO service include? For Google Search, it is "still SEO" Line items for llms.txt files, content "chunking" or buying mentions
How will you produce our content, and how much of it? Scaled content abuse applies "no matter how it's created" Many pages a month, and no answer to what each page adds
Where will our links come from? "You should never have to link to an SEO." Paid guest posts with optimized anchors, link packages, a mandatory footer link
Will you show us every change you make? A provider with server access "should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site" Secrecy about methods
How did you find us? "Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that email you out of the blue." An unsolicited email saying you are not listed in search engines

The sections below explain the rows that need more than one line.

Give read access, not the keys

Google's advice on audits is precise. If an SEO offers one, "only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don't grant them write access)."

Search Console is Google's free tool that shows how your site appears in search, and its help page on owners, users and permissions defines distinct permission levels. An Owner "has full control over properties in Search Console" and can add and remove other users. A Full user "has view rights to all data and can take some actions." A Restricted user "has simple view rights on most data." For an audit, Restricted is the level that matches Google's advice; anything more belongs in a signed scope.

Two habits follow from the same help page. Keep at least one verified owner inside your own company, because "A property must have at least one verified owner." And when a provider leaves, check the owner list: a verified owner is tied to a verification token on your site, and you remove a previous owner "by removing their verification token."

What the audit itself should deliver, per Google: "realistic estimates of improvement, and an estimate of the work involved." If it ends with a promise of first place instead, Google's instruction fits in three words: "find someone else." And if the audit flags pages that Google knows about but has not indexed, our guide to Discovered, currently not indexed helps you tell a real problem from a waiting room.

Ask which Google document backs each recommendation

Google asks you to "think critically about any claims or recommendations you hear, and make your own informed decisions", and gives three tests:

  • "Do they cite official Google documentation as supporting evidence for their recommendations?"
  • If they advise on AI experiences, is the advice "aligned with Google Search's official guidance on optimizing for generative AI features?"
  • "Do they use tools that are aligned with Google's guidance?"

On tools, the page is blunt: Google "doesn't evaluate or endorse third-party SEO tools, and these tools don't have access to Google's internal ranking data." It adds: "Be wary of tools that claim to be 'acceptable' or 'approved' by Google Search."

A recommendation backed only by a tool score is an opinion with a number attached. A recommendation backed by a Google documentation page is one you can check yourself, in a few minutes, before paying for it.

If they sell AEO or GEO, check it against Google's AI guide

AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) are names for work aimed at appearing in AI answers. Google's guide to generative AI features in Search, last updated on 10 July 2026, answers the question directly: "From Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." Anyone "considering third-party 'AEO' or 'GEO' advice or services" is sent back to the hiring checklist above.

The same guide lists what you can ignore for Google Search:

  • llms.txt files and other "special" markup, because "Google Search itself doesn't use them"
  • "chunking" content into tiny pieces for AI
  • rewriting content just for AI systems
  • "seeking inauthentic 'mentions'" across the web
  • overfocusing on structured data, which "isn't required for generative AI search"

If a proposal is built from those line items, you are paying for work that Google says it does not use for its own results. The guide also warns about the dashboards that often come with these offers: "No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems." The measurement it points to is free: the Generative AI performance report in Search Console.

This applies to us as well. distrify is built to make a brand findable in search, social and AI answers, and we do not sell an llms.txt file or promise that an AI assistant will cite you. What does earn visibility in AI answers is covered in our guide to generative engine optimization and in how to appear in Google AI Overviews. On mentions specifically, see what gets a brand mentioned in ChatGPT.

Ask how they produce content

Content development is on Google's list of useful services, and it is often where a monthly retainer spends most of its hours. Ask how pages get written, by whom, how many per month, and what each one adds that a reader cannot already find elsewhere.

The reason is a policy change from March 2024. In Google's announcement of 5 March 2024, Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Management, wrote that the policy against automated low-quality content would now focus on "producing content at scale to boost search ranking", and apply "whether automation, humans or a combination are involved." The spam policies in force today define scaled content abuse as "when many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users", "no matter how it's created."

Google reported the effect in an update to the same announcement, dated 26 April 2024: "45% less low-quality, unoriginal content in search results", against the 40% it had expected.

So "we use human writers" is not an answer on its own, and neither is "we use AI, it's fine." The answer you want explains what is original in each page. We went through what Google actually says about AI-written articles in AI content and Google penalties: myths and facts, and through sustainable volume in how often to publish blog posts without a team.

Google's hiring page says "You should never have to link to an SEO," and advises avoiding SEOs "that talk about link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines."

The spam policies spell out what link spam is. The list starts with "Buying or selling links for ranking purposes", which includes "Exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links." It also names "Using automated programs or services to create links to your site", and paid articles or guest posts that carry links "that pass ranking credit." Paid links are not banned as such: they are fine for advertising as long as they are qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored".

The consequence is written at the top of the same policies: "Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all." And the hiring page is explicit about whose problem that is: "Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire." If a proposal includes a monthly link package, ask for the list of sites and whether the links are marked as sponsored.

Match the provider to the job

Go back to the list of services in the first section and split it in two.

Part of it is judgment: a technical review before a redesign, expertise in a specific market or country, training your team. That is where an experienced specialist earns the fee, and where the questions above do the filtering.

The rest is production: finding what buyers search for, writing the pages that answer them, publishing on a steady cadence, and turning each article into posts for the channels where the same buyers spend their time. That work is repetitive, measurable, and easy to under-deliver. We broke it down in the SEO tasks you can automate and the ones you cannot.

If that production work is what you were about to hire an agency for, it is the work distrify is being built to take off your hands: one campaign, written, published and turned into social posts, aligned on the same keywords. Join the waitlist

FAQ

Can an SEO agency guarantee first place on Google? No. Google's page says "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google," and tells you to beware of anyone who claims a "special relationship" with Google or advertises a "priority submit". Even a page that meets every requirement has no guarantee: Google's AI guide states that "Indexing and serving aren't guaranteed."

Will paying for Google Ads improve my organic ranking? No. Google writes that advertising "won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results", and that it "never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results."

What access should I give an SEO agency? Read access during the audit, which in Search Console means a Restricted user. Owner rights let someone add and remove users and change settings, so they belong in a signed scope, never in a first meeting.

How long before an SEO agency shows results? Google's page does not give a number. It asks you to make the agency commit to one: "What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?" The first signal is usually impressions in Search Console before any click, as we describe in the signs that SEO is working before the first clicks.

Where can I report an SEO that deceived me? Google points businesses in the United States to the Federal Trade Commission, and complaints against a company outside the United States to econsumer.gov.

Where this leaves you

Bring the scorecard to the first call and let the agency answer each row. A provider worth hiring will cite the same Google pages you have just read, and will be comfortable putting its timeline, its content process and its link sources in writing.

Whoever you hire, the work only pays once the pages exist, are published, and reach buyers on more than one channel. That is the argument of our guide to one campaign across every channel.

Join the waitlist