5 Ways You Can Spot an SEO Scam

Plenty of SEO agencies and freelancers still try to scam honest businesses to make a quick buck.

It often takes weeks and months to see any appreciable results from even the most legitimate SEO efforts, which makes things even easier for scammers. By the time you realize they’re not actually helping you out, you’ve already been paying them for months.

On this page, we’ll dig into how you can distinguish between scams and real SEO work, so that you can choose an SEO agency that will produce real results for your business.

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What SEO is

It often helps to set a baseline of knowledge when vetting an SEO proposal for validity.

If your expectations are properly set, it’s much harder for scam artists to sneak lies, false promises, and inaccurate information past you.

SEO is a long-term, ongoing digital marketing strategy. If you structure your website in accordance with Google’s “best practice” standards, publish content that adds value for your customers, and make relationships with other websites across the Internet, your website will appear higher up in search engine results and is more likely to be cited in AI answers like Google AI Overviews.

SEO is a pillar of most modern day online marketing efforts. Generally speaking, the stronger your SEO efforts are, the more long-term success you’ll see in organic traffic, leads, and AI search visibility.

That includes AI search, which builds on SEO rather than replacing it. In WebFX’s AI Search Trends Report, an analysis of 2.3 billion sessions, generative AI grew about 796% in two years but still accounted for just 0.18% of total website sessions in 2025, while organic search drove 27.12%.

SEO is governed by well-established rules, practices, and techniques. In other words, everyone is doing essentially the same thing, with different approaches and angles here and there.

What SEO isn’t

SEO is not a “quick fix.” Proper SEO work takes weeks and even months to yield results, and there aren’t any shortcuts.

SEO is not “one and done.” It’s an ongoing strategy that requires constant work and maintenance. If you get your website up to the top of the search engine results and then sit back and relax, you can be sure it won’t stay there for long.

SEO is not a science. While it’s true there are sets of rules and practices that everyone follows, the entire concept of SEO is predicated on search engine algorithms. These algorithms change frequently, and so do the search results themselves, which now include AI Overviews and AI Mode alongside traditional listings.

Identifying an SEO scam

With all of that information in mind, there are a few common red flags to watch out for when considering an agency or freelancer for your SEO work.

1. They promise you fast turnaround

Again, there aren’t any quick wins with SEO. Search engines like Google want to make absolutely sure they’re providing users with relevant search results, and they don’t rank websites quickly to avoid making mistakes.

Truly effective SEO strategies involve a lot of planning upfront. Agencies need to take the time to research and understand the industry your business is in, take stock of your current website, come up with a content strategy, perform keyword research, and much more.

This all takes time to do, and even after implementation, it will take some time for search engines to take the changes into account.

If a prospective SEO service is guaranteeing you results within a short or extremely specific time frame, they’re not worth your time or your money.

2. They claim “insider knowledge”

Short and simple, absolutely no one knows exactly how Google’s search engine algorithm works. It’s so massively complex and ever-changing that Google engineers themselves don’t know how it works in its entirety.

Successful SEO is based in testing, industry experience, and the guidance Google publishes for site owners.

No one has insider knowledge, so agencies that claim they do might be the single biggest red flag when shopping around for SEO work.

Google’s own advice on hiring an SEO warns against providers that allege a “special relationship” with Google or advertise a “priority submit.” Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in its organic results.

3. They guarantee impossible results

Now, legitimate, successful agencies will promise things like ranking on the first page for a certain number of keywords within a certain time frame. That’s completely fine, and isn’t necessarily a red flag.

What you want to watch out for are outlandish guarantees like ranking #1 for an extremely competitive keyword in a short time frame. Things like that simply aren’t possible to guarantee. Google states plainly that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

Something else to consider is how the guarantee is made. Different industries require different amounts of work and time for effective SEO strategies. More competitive, crowded industries will always take longer to see results in, for example.

If an agency or freelancer promises results without even asking about or mentioning your industry, you should be very skeptical.

4. They mention outdated techniques

This one can be tough to catch, especially if you’re still brushing up on your SEO knowledge.

There are a number of SEO techniques that were extremely effective years ago, when Google’s algorithm was in its infancy. Most of them don’t work at all today, and many will actively hurt your rankings rather than help.

Some common ones to look out for:

•  “Keyword stuffing” – cramming as many search keywords as possible into your content and/or meta descriptions
• Buying or trading backlinks
• “Private Blog Networks” or PBNs – a network of dummy blogs used exclusively to rank other websites
• Publishing unreviewed, AI-written articles at scale to game search results or AI answers
• Anything referred to as a “black hat” technique.

Some of these techniques can still be effective in the short term today, but will get your website penalized or even de-indexed from search engines if you’re caught using them.

5. They’re ambiguous about pricing and can’t or won’t provide references

These two qualities are the hallmarks of an agency just in it for your money.

While there is no such thing as industry standard pricing for SEO work, any legitimate agency will easily and willingly provide you with an upfront cost estimation based on your specific needs.

If a prospective SEO partner is wishy-washy or vague about pricing, it could be a sign of exploitation and artificially inflated costs down the road.

Similarly, every single agency worth partnering with will be ready and waiting to provide you with a portfolio and/or list of references that you can contact at your leisure, plus sample reports showing how they track organic traffic, leads, and AI search visibility. This one’s pretty straightforward: No references = no business.

How to spot an AI search or GEO scam

An AI search scam is an SEO scam with a new label: a provider promising guaranteed placement in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or other AI answers, or a secret formula for controlling what those tools say. No one controls AI-generated answers, so a guarantee there is even less credible than a guaranteed #1 ranking. Legitimate AI search work builds on the same fundamentals as SEO.

A provider who pitches AI optimization as a replacement for SEO is also asking you to trade your biggest search channel for a much smaller one. Before you sign with anyone selling AI search work, ask them to:

• Name the fundamentals in the plan. Real AI search work includes technical fixes, helpful content, and mentions on sites AI tools trust. A pitch that skips them is packaging, not a plan.
• Show how they measure AI visibility. Ask which prompts and AI platforms they track. OmniSEO®, WebFX’s AI search visibility platform, tracks how a brand and its competitors are mentioned and cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, so you can record a baseline before work starts and check a provider’s reports against it.
• Tie AI visibility to traffic and leads. Ask for reporting that connects AI citations to visits and GA4 key events, not just a visibility score or screenshots of chatbot answers.
• Refuse guarantees. Treat a promise of guaranteed AI Overview or chatbot placement the same way you would a guaranteed #1 ranking.

Grow your revenue today

It can be pretty stressful to keep all of this information in mind when looking for an agency to partner with, but it’s worth it in the end.

A proper SEO agency will be helpful, mindful of any business-specific circumstances you may have, and most importantly, will deliver results.

If you’re actively looking for an agency to head up your SEO strategy, we’d love to help. At WebFX, our team builds custom SEO and AI search strategies with upfront pricing, starting at $2,900 / month.

Contact us today for more information or a free quote – or take a look at our portfolio and client testimonials!