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6 min
No one can guarantee you first place on Google
Google says so itself. Here is what a search agency can honestly promise, and what to do when someone promises more.
By Umar
Every few weeks a practice forwards us an email promising the top spot on Google for a fixed monthly fee. The promise is always specific, always confident, and always worth ignoring.
Google says it plainly
In its own guidance on hiring an SEO, Google states that no one can guarantee a number one ranking. Rankings depend on signals no agency controls, and they move constantly. Anyone who guarantees a position is either misunderstanding the system or counting on you not to check.
What can honestly be promised
The work itself. A site that loads fast and can be crawled. Titles, headings and structured data that match what is actually on the page. Business details that are consistent across your site, your Google Business Profile and every directory that lists you. Content that answers the questions your patients actually type.
And then measurement: a fixed set of questions, checked every month, reported honestly, including the months where nothing moved.
How to read a proposal
Look for scope rather than outcomes. How many pages, how many hours, which keywords, what gets reported and how often. A proposal that commits to specific work is worth more than one that commits to a ranking it cannot control.