A track record is only useful if you can confirm it. Most agencies present results in a polished slide or a line on their website, and almost none of those numbers can be checked at face value. Verification means turning a claim into something you can independently test before you sign a contract.
Ask for live, named examples
Start by asking for two or three current client sites, by URL and by name, with the keywords or pages the agency improved. A real track record can be pointed to. If the agency only offers anonymous case studies (“a national retailer,” “a law firm in the Southeast”), you cannot verify anything, so treat anonymous results as marketing rather than proof. It is reasonable for an agency to protect a few sensitive accounts, but it should not be able to protect all of them.
Check ranking and traffic claims independently
Once you have named sites and keywords, test the claims yourself. Open Google in an incognito or private window and search the keywords the agency says it ranks for. You can also use a paid tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz to pull the organic keyword profile and estimated traffic for a domain. These tools let you see whether a site ranks for commercial terms or only for its own brand name, and many show a traffic trend going back several years. If an agency claims it grew a client’s traffic in a specific window, the trend line should show a rise in roughly that period.
When the example is your own future site or a past account you controlled, Google Search Console and Google Analytics are the most reliable sources, because that data is recorded by Google for your property rather than estimated by a third party. If you are reviewing an agency’s claim about your existing site, match their reported date range in Search Console, filter out branded queries, and compare clicks rather than impressions for the exact pages they named. If the numbers do not line up, the claim is not verified.
Look at the agency’s own results
An agency that sells search visibility should have some of its own. Search for the services it offers in its city or niche and see whether it appears. Run its domain through the same tools you would use on a client site. A firm that has operated for years but ranks for almost nothing, or ranks only for its company name, is worth questioning. This is not a perfect test, since some agencies focus their effort on clients rather than themselves, but it is one more data point.
Use third-party review platforms
Reviews on an agency’s own website are curated. Independent platforms are harder to control. Clutch, G2, UpCity, and Google Business reviews collect feedback that the agency did not write and often cannot remove. Read for patterns rather than single comments: repeated mentions of missed deadlines, poor reporting, or sudden traffic drops matter more than one unhappy client. Notice how the agency responds to criticism, and be skeptical of a profile with only five-star reviews posted within a short span, which can indicate solicited or fake feedback.
Ask for before-and-after evidence and references
Request before-and-after screenshots from Google Search Console or Analytics, not from a tool the agency could edit. Genuine exports show the property name, date range, and Google’s own interface. Then ask to speak with one or two current clients directly. A short call lets you confirm that the results were real, that the timeline matched what the agency now presents, and that the client would hire the firm again.
A practical red flag
Be cautious with any agency that guarantees a specific ranking or refuses to share data because it is “confidential.” A verifiable track record and a refusal to be verified cannot both be true. If every request to confirm a claim is met with resistance, you have learned something about the agency, even if you never see a single number.
Verification takes an afternoon. It is far cheaper than a year-long contract built on results you were never able to confirm.