Dumb SEO Questions

(Entry was posted by Evgenii Neumerzhitckii on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 05/18/2014).

We pay an SEO agency but they refused to provide a list of URLs to those pages with backlinks. Is it normal?

Hello friends. I am in a very interesting situation and need advice. We have an ecommerce website and we pay external SEO agency. They are placing backlinks to our site. When I asked them to provide a list of URLs to those pages with backlinks this SEO agency refused to do it. Is it normal behavior for an SEO agency? Should we continue working with them? ?
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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

  • Evgenii Neumerzhitckii: Hello friends. I am in a very interesting situation and need advice. We have an ecommerce website and we pay external SEO agency. They are placing backlinks to our site. When I asked them to provide a list of URLs to those pages with backlinks this SEO agency refused to do it. Is it normal behavior for an SEO agency? Should we continue working with them? 
  • Marta Gryszko: It is a standard behaviour, but AFAIK only in some countries. For example in Poland it's hard to find an agency that charges you for the quantity of backlinks so we usually send monthly ranking reports (regardless of whether we charge clients for positions or there is a flat fee) and clients are more interested in seeing effects rather than the links. But... still if a client asks for the list of baclinks and an agency doesn't want to give it to him, it usually means very low quality and cheap link building methods. 
  • Morten Madsen: If that is standard behaviour, I would switch agency immediately...
  • Evgenii Neumerzhitckii: +Marta Gryszko ;Exactly. I am worried that we can get Penguinized with those backlinks. We have no control over them and SEO agency does not even tell us where they are. Scary. I am from Australia, btw.
  • Evgenii Neumerzhitckii: +Morten Madsen ;that was my initial reaction as well - to switch. If there is no transparency between client and their SEO agency, how can we work together?
  • Marta Gryszko: Well, backlinks are what you can download on your own, but if you ask your agency about some spammy links, they can always say they weren't added by them :/ Even though, if you think you have a problem with Penguin, your SEO agency is the one who should check it and make it go away. 
  • Morten Madsen: +Evgenii Neumerzhitckii absolutely agree. Transparency is key. And the backlinks you can download from various SEO tools and WMT as +Marta Gryszko suggests could be an option, but will only show parts of the picture.
    Being from Oz, have you considered +Dejan SEO?
    We've only used them one time recently and just for reporting, so my experience with them is limited to that and the owners activity on soc med + blogs.
    Our SEO guys were happy with the quality of report though 
  • Farhan Fawzer: Find a agency with full transparency 
  • Dillon Bailey: Agree with the above, without transparency what's the point. +David Gatt interested to get your opinion!
  • Evgenii Neumerzhitckii: +Marta Gryszko good point, thanks. I will check the backlinks myself and see if they are good.
  • Evgenii Neumerzhitckii: +Farhan Fawzer thanks for advice. 
  • Evgenii Neumerzhitckii: +Morten Madsen thank you so much for advice with dejanseo. We are thinking of doing SEO in house now. But it is always good to have reporting done by a 3rd party. We will definitely consider them.
  • Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:34:50 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/we_pay_an_seo_agency_but_they_refused_to_provide_a_list_of_urls_to_those_pages_with_backlinks_is_it_normal +Evgenii Neumerzhitckii

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View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 05/18/2014).

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