Marketing 2 min read

Google Recommends SEO Consultants to Work for Free

vectorkuro / Shutterstock.com

vectorkuro / Shutterstock.com

The digital marketing community is criticizing Google for advising SEO consultants to give clients free site audits.

Recently, Google published a video on how to hire an SEO agency. While the first two recommendations are reasonable, the last one has drawn criticism from members of the search community.

The search engine giant recommends that companies first interview SEO consultants before hiring. Also, they must read through all their references.

These suggestions are reasonable enough, right?

Meanwhile, the third advice states that businesses should request a technical and search audit before hiring the SEO professional. In other words, Google is recommending that companies require free work to determine if the consultant is worth hiring.

Expectedly, this drew tons of adverse reactions from the search community.

SEO Consultants Criticize Google For Advising Free Audit

Editor of SEO by the sea, a prominent search engine optimization blog, Bill Slawski, stated that Google’s advice about SEO was questionable.

He tweeted:

He then tagged Google’s John Mueller and Danny Sullivan to get their feedback. Although Muller did not join the discussion, Sullivan did.

First, Google Search Liason pointed out that he didn’t produce the video. He further suggested that the video wasn’t referring to an extensive audit. Instead, it’s a general overview of what needed to be done.

Sullivan wrote:

“It’s fair enough that even a light audit can be seen at valuable consulting that wouldn’t be given away. But it’s also fair enough you don’t just hire an SEO without getting some sense of what they’re going to do. So maybe the video could be updated to balance that more.”

However, Google did not recommend taking a look around a site before giving a quote. Instead, the video clearly advises that businesses request a technical and search audit before hiring an SEO.

An audit is a formal document with actionable insights. And that’s what the search engine giant wants search consultant to provide to businesses for free.

Read More: Meet Kilos, Dark Web’s Biggest Search Engine Today

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Edgy Universe

EDGY is an SEO incubator, forecaster, and support center for deep learning, technological advancement, and enterprise-level end-to-end search programs.

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    Thirupathi RM December 16 at 2:23 pm GMT

    categories given below could be science, technology ,engineering, maths, marketing and culture !!

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    Thirupathi RM December 16 at 2:24 pm GMT

    taxonomy of a graphical content based search engine is what i am searching for last few weeks , yet to find one !

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