What happens if an SEO company doesn't deliver results?

What happens depends on which of two problems you have. If the company did not do the work it agreed to do, you have a documented gap in the contract, and that gives you leverage: a correction plan, a credit or refund where the contract allows it, or an exit. If the company did the work and the results have not followed, you have a strategy problem rather than a breach, and the realistic outcomes are a revised plan or ending the engagement at the next point the contract allows. Telling the two apart is the first step, and it needs evidence rather than impressions.

Was the work done?

Start with what the contract committed the company to: a number of pages, specific technical fixes, links, reports, or hours. Then check what was delivered. Changes to your site can be seen on the site itself and in the company’s dated record of what it changed. New or rewritten pages should appear in Search Console’s Page indexing report as indexed, or show a reason why they are not. If the agreed work is missing, list each item with its date; that list is the basis of everything that follows.

Did the work produce anything yet?

If the work was done, look for movement before final results. Search Console’s Performance report shows impressions, clicks, and positions for the pages and queries the work targeted, compared with an earlier period. Rising impressions on target pages with flat inquiries is a different situation from no movement at all, and both are different from a decline. Ask the company to explain the figures for the pages it worked on, not for the site as a whole.

Raising it formally

Put your concern in writing, naming the deliverables that are missing or the figures that have not moved and quoting the contract terms involved, and ask for a written answer: what the company believes is happening, what it will change, and by when you will review the change together. Keep the reply and any later commitments with your notes from calls. Check the contract for a dispute or notice procedure and follow it, because skipping a required step can weaken your position later.

What if the work is late rather than missing?

A late deliverable is a narrower problem than missing results, and the first question is where the delay sat. SEO work passes through more than one pair of hands. Some steps wait on you, such as approving a brief, supplying product details, granting access, or getting a change through your developer. Some wait on third parties, such as a publisher’s schedule for an article that carries a link. Some sit entirely with the company. For each late item, record what was promised and by when, what arrived and when, and which of the three it was waiting on.

Over a few weeks that record shows whether the delays come from the company’s own work, from your side of the process, or from outside. A company that keeps missing dates on work only it controls has a capacity or planning problem; one whose delays sit mostly with your approvals needs a faster approval route from you. If the relationship is worth keeping, agree in writing what on-time delivery means for a fixed period, and judge the company against it at the end.

What you can ask for

When agreed work was not delivered, you can ask for it to be completed at no extra charge, for a credit against future invoices, or, where the contract provides for it, a refund for the undelivered part. When the work was delivered and results are disappointing, a contract that promised activity rather than outcomes may give no claim for the money paid. What remains is a revised strategy or an exit at the next allowed point.

Leaving cleanly

If no credible plan comes back, read the termination terms, give notice in the form the contract requires, and secure your accounts before access is removed: website logins, Search Console, Analytics, Business Profile, and the content and reports produced for you. With those in your hands, a new company can start from your history rather than from nothing.

This is general information, not legal advice. Whether a refund or another remedy is available depends on the contract and the law that governs it; for a significant dispute, a lawyer can review the agreement and your records with you.