If your SEO company provides you with monthly statistical reports about your website then make sure your data has not been “ring fenced” otherwise you could have problems in the future! This article explains a practice used by some SEO and PPC companies using Google Analytics accounts to lock you into their services.

So what is Google analytics (GA) ring fencing?

Basically, its when your SEO Company registers your website on a free Google Analytics account but denies you access to that same account. Your website could be stored on a single account or a parent account with up to 50 other websites.

Here’s how it works:

Your SEO company contracts to provide you with monthly reports as part of your SEO package. They add your website to a GA account then place some Google tracking code on your website. After a week or so you receive your first report (usually by email). However the problems arise later when you ask for access to your online reports. You make your request only to be told your reports are “confidential”, “too complex” or you could “view the reports of other clients”. Hence your data has been “ring fenced”.

Why it benefits the SEO company.

This benefits the SEO company because they can lock you into their services in the following ways: 

• You can only obtain the reports from the SEO company
• You have to rely on the SEO Company for technical expertise on your data

but there are darker sides that benefit them such as:  

• They get to charge you fees for generating the (free) report
• They can threaten you with losing your historical data if you…
  • stop using their services
  • move your SEO to another company
• Tell you can lose your rankings (yes some actually say this!)

Conclusion

Any ethical SEO company should provide you with your own analytics account to which you can access your data any time. They will not charge you fees for reports but a small fee to set up the account is reaonable. They will not make claims about losing historical data or losing your rankings.The data if free and it is yours!

It is fair however to be charged for analysis of these reports and any adjustments to your website. The reports provide valuable data aimed at professionals which can be used to improve the performance of your website.

If your SEO Company is ring fencing your GA account then perhaps its time to look for alternatives.

What’s with the keyword spamming from companies outside the area? We are an Ethical Search Engine Optimisation company based in South Queensferry, Edinburgh. We believe that a big part of the SEO process for us is all about being ethical however, some of our competitors (who are not based in Edinburgh ) seem hell bent on spamming Search Engines with such key phrases such as “SEO Edinburgh and throughout the UK”. The same applies for Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen,London, Birmingham, Manchester etc., etc.

Why?  It’s clearly SEO’s trying deploying all the spammy techniques in the book to obtain SERPS domination. It’s much more productive to concentrate in good copy and the rest will follow.  Think about it for a minute. Any company using a local search is looking for a local company. The minute they click on a spammed link tey will bounce back to a local company in the listings. Edinburgh is a big city with many businesses providing excellent services so why other companies as far away as Birmingham and London spam the local search with these keyphrases can only be detrimental to the company and frustrating for the searcher.

The whole point of SEO is to be targetted for your key phrases in your key local or national area - or so we thought. Whilst we do business nationally we are an SEO company based in Edinburgh. Our national work comes to us not because we spam search engines with phrases like “SEO Aberdeen, SEO London” etc., it comes to us because we’re extremely good at what we do and we don’t need to resort to these spamming tactics.

So there’s a moral here…especially for companies doing their inhouse SEO or competitors constantly looking at our website. Just don’t cheat and don’t spam. It’s a huge big old world out there and play fair. It will reward you in the end.