SEO Etiquette

Recently, I hired a new SEO consultant for our website. They suggested that I place a blog on our site, which I agreed to, and gave them Admin privileges to. On the footer area of the page they placed anchor text "SEO Services" with a link to their website.

Should they not have asked permission to do this at the very least?

Thanks

 

Eh, it depends. I guess they probably should have, did you sign a contact with them? Might have been in the small font on the contract if so.

 

I've never done that to a client and I think it is rude. You can remove it and tell the consultant how you feel. Plus, adding those words and that link to your footer will confuse search engines.

 

Well I personally only add the link only after the client approves.
You could look at the contract but i doubt you will find any of those rights in the contract they sent, it is rather a matter of "etiquette" as you said.
Just be careful because you might end up at the end with links from 3-4-5 or even 10 people that provided services for you. 1. Designer, 2. WEbdeveloper, 3. SEO, etc etc

 

As sarahk mentioned, it's rude but also idiotic SEO. It isn't going to help you or them. Forget SEO. Instead, invest your money in great and relevant content, and marketing it.

 

Aside from bad SEO that is totally ghetto and, to my dismay, not surprising at all.

Nigel

 

If i say personally, that's ridiculous sue them !! They are not more than idiotic who are trying to get their business settled up by using you. They should not have done this, it is not legal unless you have signed any contract without reading their terms an condition.

 

Thanks for the replies. No, no contract, just the usual we need some work done and an agreement to their fees for their work to push our site back up in the rankings. They seemed knowledgeable and not just the "let me build you a ton of links and you'll be on page #1" approach. That's why I was kind of surprised about them doing this and although I felt they went out of bounds placing the link, I wanted to check if my thinking was right and that it was not something other people do at times.

 

That's rude K-Tee, no SEO company or even a SEO freelancer will do that. From there you know what person you hired.

 

Completely rude and ghetto. I would let them know that is unacceptable behavior.

Doesn't surprise me, I've seen it happen a lot. I have even seen SEO people put links inside code and meta tags. Like an out of control dog pissing all over the place.

 

It's just a very unethical SEO consultant service. Hope you'll understand better from others comments...

 

Send them a bill for advertising. If you didn't agree to the link, they're using valuable ad space, so they should expect to pay for it. Give them 30 days to pay, then sue them if they don't.

 

Say them to remove that link as it might also affect your if their site is of low quality. Also without your permission they have no right to place any link which leads towards their site.