How to use a list of red flags without becoming paranoid
One red flag is a question. Three is an answer. Most sellers in this field are not scammers. Many are small teams who learned to write proposals from other proposals. A phrase that sounds bad may come from habit, not intent. So treat each flag as a prompt to ask a follow-up, then see whether the follow-up is answered plainly.
The flags below are specific to proposals for online stores. They are grouped by what they hide: the promise, the work, the ownership and the proof. Each one comes with what to ask next.
If you want to walk into the conversation prepared rather than reactive, the list of questions to ask an ecommerce SEO agency is the companion to this page. And for the whole picture of how help is structured, what a good ecommerce SEO engagement looks like instead shows the standard these flags are measured against.
One thing to keep in view. A red flag is about the proposal, not about the idea of hiring help. Plenty of stores get real value from outside work. The goal is to pick the sellers who describe it honestly.
Red flags in the promise
Anyone selling you search results is selling something they do not control. Google decides its rankings. AI assistants decide who to name. A seller can improve your odds, but cannot dictate the outcome.
A guaranteed ranking or "page one in 90 days"
No one can guarantee a position. Ask what exactly is guaranteed, in writing, and what you get if it fails. A fair guarantee is about something the seller controls, such as the work delivered or the right to leave. A promise of a specific position is a marketing line.
"We will 10x your traffic"
Any multiplier with no baseline is decoration. Ask: from which number, measured how, over what period, on which pages?
Secret sauce
"Proprietary method" is sometimes real and sometimes a way to avoid explaining. You do not need the source code. You do need to know what they will do to your pages. If they cannot describe the work in plain words, you will not be able to tell whether it was done.
Pressure to sign now
Deadlines on a monthly service are artificial. A good seller expects you to compare. If an offer disappears in two days, take that as the answer to question 12 on the list: what is it like to leave?
The diagram above pairs each warning with the wording a sound proposal uses instead. You can use it as a translator in your own head while you read.
Red flags in the work described
This is where proposals for online stores most often go wrong, because the work has to fit a catalog, not a brochure site.
Deliverables with no counts
"On-page optimization" and "content creation" are activities. Ask for numbers and names: how many collection pages, how many product pages, how many articles, which topics. Our guide to reading an ecommerce SEO package line by line shows how to turn each vague line into something you can check.
One template for every store
If the proposal could be sent to a shoe store and a pet supply store with only the name changed, the plan was not written for you. A good one mentions your categories, your price range, your tricky pages and the questions your buyers ask.
Nothing about collection pages, variants or out-of-stock items
These are the parts of an online store that behave differently from any other site. A proposal that talks only about blog posts and "authority" ignores where most buying searches land.
Mass-produced text
Thousands of near-identical pages might look like volume. They often create the very problem Google sees as thin or repeated material. See our page on duplicate content in ecommerce for what that does to a catalog.
No access needed, and no changes made
If the seller never touches your store and sends a list for you to apply, you are buying advice, not work. That can be fine, but the price should reflect it.
Red flags around links and shortcuts
Links from other sites remain one of the signals search engines weigh. They are also where the worst shortcuts live.
"We will build 50 links a month" with no list of where. A real backlink comes from a real site that a person chose to publish on. Ask for the URLs every month. A link from a site that exists only to sell links is worse than no link, because it can draw a penalty.
Private networks and "guest post packages" from the same list of sites. If the sites are generic, accept anyone's payment and publish on every topic, the link tells search engines nothing good.
Fake reviews or fake customer questions. Anything that invents reviews, comments or mentions puts your store at risk and damages the trust that the pages rely on.
Hidden text, doorway pages or content in keyword-stuffed blocks. These tricks are old and are the kind of thing that gets stores dropped from results.
A fair test: would you be comfortable if a customer saw exactly how each link or page was made? If the answer is no, so is your answer to the proposal.
Red flags in ownership and reporting
These are the flags that hurt most later, because you only notice them when you want to leave.
Your accounts in their name
Google Search Console, analytics and any tag manager should be in your name, with the seller added as a user. If they insist on owning the accounts, you lose your history if you part ways.
Content that stays in their system
Pages should be published on your own domain, in your own platform. If the content is loaded from the seller's servers, or stops working when you cancel, it was never yours.
Long contracts with auto-renewal and no exit
Look for the term, the notice period and what happens to the work. Be wary of a contract that is long in months and short in remedies.
Reports built to impress
A dashboard full of green arrows, a proprietary "SEO score" and a list of keywords that moved up, with no clicks and no sales by page, is a report that cannot disappoint you. That is why it is popular. Compare against the model in what an ecommerce SEO report should show: clicks to product and category pages, the pages tied to revenue, and what changed since last month.
Case studies without numbers or dates
A real result names the type of business, the period, the metric and where it was measured. "Increased traffic by a lot for a leading brand" is not a result.
Red flags in claims about AI and new search
Shoppers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude where to buy things, and sellers have rushed to add that to their pitch. Some of it is real. Some of it is fog.
A guarantee of being named by an AI assistant. Nobody controls what an assistant says. What anyone can do is make pages that answer buyer questions clearly, and earn mentions on independent sites. Our write-up of how AI assistants pick businesses explains why independent sources matter more than a famous brand.
"Special files" sold as a magic fix. Some sellers charge for one-off files or tags promised to make assistants notice you. A technical file may help a little. It will not replace useful pages.
No way to check. If they say they work on AI visibility, ask how they test it. A good answer involves asking the assistants the questions your buyers ask, recording the replies and repeating monthly.
Also watch for the opposite flag: a seller who says search is finished and only AI matters. Both matter. Pages that earn clicks from Google are often the same pages assistants draw on.
What to do when you spot one
Do not walk away on the first flag. Ask the follow-up, in writing, and give the seller a chance to answer plainly. Then do this:
Count. One unexplained flag is a yellow light. Three, or one in the ownership section, is a reason to stop.
Compare. Put two proposals side by side. A flag that appears in all of them may be a feature of the industry. One that appears in only one stands out.
Ask for a smaller start. A one-category pilot or a short first term limits the downside. How the seller reacts to that request tells you a great deal.
Keep the paper. Save the proposal, emails and any promises. If the work later differs from what was described, you will want the record.
If a proposal passes all of this and you still feel unsure, that is also worth listening to. The right seller should make the decision easier, not harder.
The opposite list: signs a proposal is sound
Spotting problems is half the job. The other half is recognizing a proposal that is honest, because a reader trained only on warnings can reject a good seller out of habit. These signs point the other way.
They start with your store, not their service. The first pages of the proposal describe your categories, your search data and your problems. The offer comes after.
They say what they do not know. "We cannot tell yet whether your drop in clicks is technical or seasonal. Here is how we would find out" is a better sentence than a confident diagnosis from a ten-minute look.
They quote counts and names. Twelve collection pages rewritten, with the list attached. Eight articles on named questions. Fixes to a stated set of redirects.
They show how they will be judged. The proposal names the numbers they will report and agrees that those numbers can be checked in tools you control.
They make leaving easy. A clear term, a plain notice period, and a promise that everything published stays yours.
They talk about slow progress honestly. Search takes weeks to respond. A seller who says so, and tells you what you should see by month two, is describing the field truthfully.
They are comfortable with a small first step. A pilot or a short initial term is welcomed, not resisted.
No proposal will tick every box. But one that ticks most of these and shows few of the warnings above is worth a serious conversation, and the twelve questions on the companion page are the way to test it.
Red flags in how the seller behaves
Some warning signs appear in conduct rather than in the document.
Slow or evasive replies before you have paid. If answers to simple questions take a week now, they will not speed up after the contract is signed.
Criticism of your current setup with no evidence. A seller who says your store is a disaster after a quick look, without naming pages, is selling fear. A good one names specific pages and what they cost you.
No interest in your margins or best sellers. SEO effort should follow the products that make money. A seller who never asks which products matter most will spread effort evenly, which means thinly.
Surprise add-ons. If the first invoice includes items that were not in the proposal, read the contract again. Extra charges for tools, setup or "premium" tasks are a pattern worth noticing early.
How RunOctopus handles this
Many red flags come down to ownership and proof. You should be able to see what was done on your own site.
RunOctopus is a done-for-you service. Its AI, Ollie, researches your business, then writes and publishes pages directly on your own website. A team plans, writes, reviews and publishes alongside Ollie. It works with Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce and Wix.
There is nothing to install, nothing to approve, nothing to upload and nothing to schedule. You do not approve each page, because pages go live on their own. In the first week you get 8 long-form articles, 6 pages and a custom interactive tool built for your niche. After that it is 175+ pieces of content a month, written, published and linked. You also get reports on where ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini name your business.
There is a 90-day promise: more visibility on Google and in AI answers within 90 days, measured against the 90 days before you joined, or every dollar back. For scale, an agency doing this work charges about $3,209 a month (2026 average, 439 providers) and publishes 4 to 12 pieces.
Paste your address into the free site read and Ollie reads the site and shows the plan. No account, no call.