SEO contracts and guarantees, read before you sign

Most SEO disputes are not about SEO. They are about a clause nobody read: the minimum term that renewed itself, the notice that could only be given at the end of the term, the exit fee that turned a bad quarter into a bad year. The proposal is written to be read; the terms are written to be signed. This guide is about the terms.

We read the published contracts and policies of eight agencies that compete for London SEO work and quote the clauses below with their sources, each checked on 9 October 2026. We then explain why guarantees of rankings are a sign to leave rather than stay, what kinds of guarantee are legitimate, and what fair terms look like. Our own terms are included so you can hold us to the same standard.

Why the contract matters more than the proposal

A pattern repeated across the agencies we profiled: the home page says one thing and the terms say another. Genie Crawl puts "No fixed contract, just MONTH BY MONTH" in the hero of every page, while its terms require payments to be made upfront, a notice period of one month in the first six months and two months after that, and say that "a cancellation fee will also apply" if you leave within the cooling-off period (profile checked 9 Oct 2026). ClickSlice advertises "rolling 30 day contracts", and its fulfilment policy does allow termination on 30 days’ written notice; but the same policy makes a standing order "a compulsory part of our onboarding process" and states that the agency "does not offer refunds for any services rendered" (profile checked 9 Oct 2026).

Neither of those is unusual or necessarily unfair. The point is that you would not know any of it from the pages that persuaded you. Business-to-business contracts carry far fewer of the protections consumers rely on at home, so what you sign is largely what you get. Read the terms first, and if an agency will not send them before a pitch, that is your first finding.

The seven clauses to find

Every SEO agreement answers these seven questions somewhere. Find each answer before you sign, and write them on one page.

1. Minimum term

How long you are committed for. Rolling monthly, three months, six, twelve or twenty-four. Twelve is the most common fixed term in the contracts we read; some agencies publish none at all and set the term per client.

2. Automatic renewal

Whether the agreement renews for another full term unless you give notice before the end. This is the clause that turns a one-year decision into a two-year one if you miss a date.

3. Notice period and when it can be given

How much notice you must give, and whether it can be given at any time or only so that it expires at the end of the term. "30 days’ notice" means something very different if termination cannot take effect until the term ends.

4. Early exit fee

What you pay to leave before the term ends: nothing, the notice period, a percentage of the remaining fees, or the whole balance.

5. Payment method and timing

Monthly in advance is normal. A compulsory standing order or direct debit, payment for months in advance, or interest rates on late payment above the statutory rate are worth noticing.

6. Ownership and hand-over

Who owns the Google accounts, the content, the images, the dashboards and the links. Whether access is handed over when you leave, and how quickly.

7. The agency’s own exit rights

Whether the agency can end the agreement without notice while you cannot, and what it refunds if it does.

What London and UK agency terms actually say

The table below quotes or summarises the published terms of the agencies we profiled, with the page each came from. Where an agency publishes no service terms, the row says so. "Marketing" is what the sales pages say; "terms" is what you would sign.

Three of the eight publish genuinely rolling terms. Two have a fixed term that renews itself and a cost to leave early that most buyers would not expect: 85 percent of the remaining fees in one case, the whole remaining balance in another. The rest sit somewhere between the headline and the small print. None of this makes any of them a bad agency. It makes the terms the first thing to read.

Guarantees: why nobody can promise rankings

Google’s own guidance on hiring an SEO could not be plainer: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google", and if an SEO guarantees first place, "find someone else". The reason is structural. Rankings are decided by Google’s systems, your competitors’ actions and your own site, and an agency controls only its own work. A promise about an outcome it does not control is either empty or backed by tactics that risk a penalty.

UK advertising law reaches the same conclusion from the other direction. The CAP Code, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, says in rule 3.1 that marketing "must not materially mislead or be likely to do so", and in rule 3.7 that marketers must hold documentary evidence for claims consumers are likely to regard as objective. "Guaranteed page one" is an objective claim no agency can hold evidence for in advance.

The agencies we profiled mostly know this. The SEO Works’ London FAQ says "No SEO agency should make guarantees like that"; Breakline’s home page says "no legitimate SEO agency can guarantee specific rankings"; Genie Crawl’s terms disclaim performance; Absolute’s contract (clause 9) says it "does not guarantee the positioning that it can achieve"; Bird’s terms say the same (all profiles checked 9 Oct 2026). Where guarantee wording does appear, it tends to sit on sales pages and to be contradicted by the terms: ClickSlice’s regional and sector pages offer a 90-day money-back guarantee or a promise to "work for you for free until you are" on page one, while its fulfilment policy says it does not offer refunds and "cannot guarantee specific rankings or outcomes" (profile checked 9 Oct 2026). When the page and the policy disagree, the policy is what you signed.

The guarantees that are legitimate

None of this means an agency should promise nothing. It means the promises should be about things the agency controls.

A guarantee of rankings, traffic or return should make you more cautious, not less. A guarantee of work, dates, ownership and exit should be the minimum you accept.

What fair terms look like

Here are the terms every price on our pricing page is sold on. They are published on the before you sign page and repeated in the contract; the two will never differ.

We publish them because the alternative, a rolling-contract headline with different terms underneath, is the thing this guide exists to warn you about. We also set them out in the code of ethics: no guaranteed rankings, no bought links, no invented reviews, no lock-in by stealth.

Rolling monthly or a fixed term: the honest trade-off

Agencies defend fixed terms on two grounds, and one of them is reasonable. The reasonable one is that SEO takes months to work, so a client who leaves in month three has paid for the setup and received none of the return. That is true, and it is why we recommend planning for six months. The unreasonable one is that a fixed term is needed to make the agency’s revenue predictable. That is the agency’s problem to solve, and a client should not solve it by giving up the right to leave.

A rolling agreement with a fair notice period gives the agency an incentive to earn every month, and gives you a cost of being wrong of one month rather than twelve. If an agency insists on a fixed term, ask for three things in return: no automatic renewal, notice that can be given during the term, and no exit fee beyond the notice period. If it will not give any of them, the term is not about the work.

Questions to ask before you sign

1. What is the minimum term, and does the agreement renew automatically? Show me the clause.
2. Can I give notice at any time, and when does termination take effect?
3. What do I pay if I leave early? Give me a worked example for leaving in month four.
4. Is a standing order or direct debit compulsory? Can I pay by invoice?
5. Which accounts will be created in my name, and who holds the logins?
6. If I leave, what is handed over, by when, and is there a fee for it?
7. Can you end the agreement without notice? Under what conditions, and what is refunded?
8. Do you guarantee any rankings, traffic or return? (The right answer is no.) What do you guarantee instead?
9. Is the wording on your website the same as the wording in the contract? Where does it differ?

The questions guide has the full list for the first meeting, and the choosing guide shows how to weigh the answers against proof and people.

If you are already locked in

If you are reading this with a renewed term already running, there are practical steps that do not need a lawyer, and one that might.

• Find the notice clause and diarise the last date on which notice stops the next renewal. Give notice in writing, by the method the contract specifies, and keep proof it was sent.
• Ask now for admin access to every account the agency created: Analytics, Search Console, Business Profile, Tag Manager, the domain, the hosting. Ownership disputes are easier to settle while you are still paying.
• Ask for a written list of every piece of content published and every link earned, with URLs. You are entitled to know what you paid for.
• Read the early-exit clause and do the arithmetic. Sometimes paying to leave costs less than staying; sometimes it does not.
• If the agency’s marketing promised terms the contract does not contain, keep copies of both. Whether that helps you is a question for a solicitor, and for a significant sum it is worth asking one.

And before the next agreement, whoever it is with, read the terms first. If you would like a plain view of what your site needs before you talk to anyone, the free SEO audit is written by hand and comes with no contract at all.

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