Does SEO need access to site to give quote?? I am considering changing from my current SEO to a new one. I have contacted one firm and they say that they need my password from my hosting company so that they can access my website and review it. They say that they cannot give me a quote without this. Is this reasonable? Thank you for any help!
no....I run an seo firm and would never ask this prior to accepting a contract. If you want a quote (without giving out your hosting login info) let me know. Joshua
Hello! Alarm bells! This is like your tailor saying he cannot measure you for trousers without dropping your boxers and inserting his index finger up your ass!
never asked them to give me a full access. First, there is lots of confidential information, especially if it is a shopping cart. And.... why? You can take a look at page source, analyze internal linking structure, and complete the competitive report anyway. Ask him exactly what he wants to find out by getting inside the web.
That was hilarious, Valley....definitely got your point across. You have a way with words! Joshua--I will contact you. Thanks to both of you.
I'm not too sure I would agree. I would want to see what kind of scripts you were running to see what I could mod easily and what would be difficult or hard. Some of the things I would want to consider are: 1) How hard to create/modify htaccess for SEO freindly urls. 2) Can I modify any (if) PHP scripts to change descriptions, meta info, etc 3) If you have info in a MySQL database, and you needed/wanted some "work" done there, are there joins, etc... 4) I would want to see if you had a true "LAMP" system. (Some are unsure). I have 0 experience in ASP... 5) I would want to see any redirects you have on your hosting service provider... Not wanting to stick my finger in any poop shooter, but I would want to get down to the brass tacks.. I would not consider it too unusuall. Could I modify paths, directory structure, scripts, etc. I would want to see what I had to work with... In my opinion, if he didn't see what he/she had to work with, than they are promising a "pie in the sky". How could you work on the "on-page factors" without knowing what you had to work with.
OK, so now I am really confused. Can I give them some type of partial access so they cannot mess things up?
For receiving a quote is not really needed any access to the site. All important parts that regard search engine optimization can be seen from outside (name them, source code, robots txt (if any .htaccess they could ask you), url structure). If you are running a CMS (content management system) then let them know which is it (they should know or at least can install it on their own server and see how it works). In addition they need to ask you for which keywords you want to rank and possibly provide you with alternative keywords too. They can measure the amount of backlinks your site has without need of accessing your host or something like that. Rules change IF the seo firm considers a reconstruction of your source code and its improvement (making your coding search engine friendly..labeled (kinda sorta)), for such intervention then they will most likely do need access to your hosting account. But i'd be curious if you could get me (from the seo firm) the answer why would they need hosting access to give a quote when they can get all the needed informations from outside better.