Protecting Your Website From SEO Fraud

Uploaded on 2025-04-17 in TECHNOLOGY--Resilience, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-IT & Telecoms

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Anything desirable and effective sooner or later attracts the attention of the wrong type of crowd. And unfortunately, search engine optimization is no exception. Even if you’ve never heard of SEO fraud (most of us haven’t), it doesn’t mean that your website isn’t at risk.

In fact, this type of scam is getting more and more popular. But before you start panicking, let us tell you one thing - you can protect your web page and your business easily by knowing what to watch out for.

That’s exactly what this guide is about.

What Is SEO Fraud All About?

SEO fraud is any kind of activity that is designed to trick website owners into paying for services they don't need or that won’t bring any real value.

Sometimes, fraudsters present themselves as “experts.” They flash cooked-up SEO reports and promise to deliver quick results that are not possible. Others can get you harmful backlinks from PBNs, making them look legit. These are all different shades of SEO fraud.

Think you’re too small to become a target of such attacks? In reality, it isn’t how it works. Often, local mom-and-pop shops and small businesses are the first “victims” who are more likely to be run by fake SEO specialists.

Why does this happen? It makes sense if you think about it. Usually, these small businesses don’t have the budget to hire in-house SEO specialists or even get a good freelancer regularly. They’re also competing against bigger brands for customers' attention and are happy to get any “affordable” help they can.

Why Is This Dangerous?

Apart from just wasting your time and money (which is already a huge downside), there are other negative outcomes you can expect.

If you become the victim of SEO fraud, you might lose your credibility and reputation as a business. After all, no one wants to have nothing in common with companies that do some shady stuff. So, make sure you only associate yourself with trusted services.

Besides, Google might “blacklist” your website for some prohibited tactics (keyword stuffing, backlink manipulations, low-quality content, etc.). It will be much harder to fix the side effects later on than to do it all well from scratch.

That’s why it is so important to request a regular SEO audit report that makes checking SEO mistakes easy. But we’ll get into the best practices later on. For now, let’s focus on how you can identify these fraudsters.

Red Flags To Identify SEO Scams

Some SEO scams are harder to spot than others, especially when fraudsters go through so much effort to look like the real thing. But no matter how promising an offer looks if it checks any item on this list, then you’re probably about to be tricked out of your hard-earned money:

Way too sweet promises. You know, these are things like, “We’ll get you to the top three spots of SERPs in three weeks.” In reality, no one can promise anything like this (even an SEO guru sent straight from the heavens).

Prices that are too low. This one is very common when you’re checking out freelance sites. You want to avoid anyone who is offering you thirty DR 80+ backlinks for the price of a ramen noodle pack.

Backlinks take a lot of time, skill, and effort to build, especially if they’re coming from such high-authority sites. So, it’s not likely that you’ll be getting anything other than spammy links this way. It also applies to other SEO services.

Weird emails. Credible SEO companies use company emails - surprise-surprise! So, if you’re getting an email from a random “business” that has a @gmail account, that’s typically a real red flag.

Refusal to verify their identity. If your SEO experts won’t agree to a video call, that’s a bad sign. When it comes to scammers, something may always come up when there’s a scheduled meeting. If it’s paired with them creating a sense of urgency to pressure you into paying for their service, you want to be careful moving forward.

Lack of clear explanations and deliverables. You should always be able to understand the scope of work and the “why” behind each thing, whatever service you’re paying for. If the SEO provider can’t explain this clearly, it’s not good.

No reporting. Think about it - any legit SEO service actually doing good work would be happy to walk you through their results. They will be proud of them. But, if they’re a fraud, the situation with reporting will be the opposite.

6 Tips to Protect Your Website From Scammers

You already know the SEO risks of working with a shady provider and how to spot them. Now what? It’s time to take the extra step to protect your websites from scammers. Here are some effective tips that can help you:

#1 Always Verify Your SEO Provider
You wouldn't plonk down money for a new car without taking it out for a test drive first, would you? Hiring a new SEO provider is a bit like that.

Before you sign anyone on, you want to do a basic check to see if the company is real and whether its services are effective. A good idea here is to go through some forums or listing platforms and read what people are saying about them.

Ask them to show their previous case studies and try to verify whether those are real. You can do that by simply asking tons of questions about how they did “this and that.” If possible, schedule a couple of calls to get to know them better and understand who will be responsible for what.

Besides, don’t worry about asking too many questions or being a hassle, most legit SEO service agencies are happy to provide you with the details you need.

#2 Regularly Check Whether You Have Manual Actions From Google
For a digital marketer, there are a few things as upsetting as getting a manual action from Google. Don’t know what this is? It’s a penalty that Google dishes out to sites that violate its SEO rules.

Maybe you dabbled in the dark arts of manipulative link building or stuffed one too many keywords. Maybe someone turned to AI-generated content, and we all know how thin those are (among other AI risks).

Whatever the offense is, getting a manual action can mean that your site is banished to the back pages of search results, where no one goes. This will affect your organic traffic and credibility as a result.

That’s why you want to check your site regularly with Google Search Console. Simply log in and click Manual actions in the menu on the left.
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Source: Google Search Console

When you click on the report, you will get full details on what the issue is so you can go ahead and fix it. Then, request a review to get this removed.

#3 Keep an Eye on Backlinks Quality
Links are a big deal. This makes them kind of a hotspot for SEO poisoning, where people would deliberately try to send you toxic links so that Google penalizes you. It’s also the area where fraudsters like to hop on to find victims.
So, how do you know if a backlink is bad or good quality? It’s actually easy. A high-quality backlink should come from a relevant site (that means they talk about topics related to yours). This site should also have a good domain score and decent organic traffic.

That means if the link comes from a page with low-quality content, lots of ads or pop-ups, and no link to your topic, it is likely bad.

You want to use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to help you check and track all backlinks your SEO providers offer you. You also need to ensure that your content strategy is on point if you are hoping to get good backlinks. This helps ensure that your backlinks work as intended and give you the most benefit.

#4 Keep Access to Your Site’s Analytics
Ignoring this advice will be one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make when outsourcing your SEO. Make sure that your contract with the SEO provider does not end with you losing access to your site’s analytics.
In fact, you should be able to change the admin settings, removing anyone who is not working for you. If that’s not the case, it could lead to serious unintended consequences that cost a lot to fix.

Even if you find the best SEO services ever, having access to your analytics won’t hurt. But if things don’t work out as planned, you can always check what’s going on without any unnecessary drama.

If we’re already talking about access policies, make sure you go beyond just MFA (where possible) and use a multi-layered strategy.

#5 Request Monthly Reports
A good SEO service provider will suggest this even if you don’t ask for it. Ideally, you want to have a clear monthly report that gives you an idea of the scope of work.

What can you expect here?

A perfect approach is when your SEO provider shows how they get your site from point A to point B every month. So, say at the beginning of the month, you were getting 2000 visits from organic search, but now seeing 3000.
While that’s a great improvement, they should be able to walk you through the strategy and timeline that led to that point. In your monthly report, you can also expect a cost breakdown and your plans for the next month.

#6 Try to Talk Everything Through in Advance
When you find a seemingly great SEO company, your first instinct might be to start ASAP. Yet, it isn’t the best approach. Ideally, you want to have a clear plan for everything you’ll do before clearing their invoice.

Ask them to prepare a detailed proposal with the exact steps and timelines. If they do link building for you, try to approve donor pages before you get a link from them. If they create content for you, check the topics before they proceed. You get the point.

This helps set the tone for a transparent relationship. You’ll feel safe, and everyone will know what to expect of the other. Even if there’s any unexpected surprise in the future, it’s easier to backtrack and fix the issue since you have already established clear expectations beforehand.

Conclusion

SEO spam might not be an obvious threat, but its consequences are very unpleasant. Yet, now you know what to watch out for. The tips in this guide won’t only protect you from any type of optimization fraud, but they will also help you build a better relationship with a good SEO provider.

So, keep in mind everything we’ve talked about today and enjoy the process.

Image: Philip Oroni

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