How do I know if an SEO company stays current?
Check what it tells you against Google’s own records of change, rather than judging how confident it sounds. Google keeps two dated records anyone can read: a log of changes to its Search documentation, and a list of its ranking updates. Ask the company what has changed recently, what it altered in its own work as a result, and what it has stopped doing, then compare the answers with those records. A company that keeps up can name specific, dated changes; one that does not will speak in general terms.
The records to check against
Google’s latest documentation updates page describes itself plainly: “This page details the latest major updates made to the Google Search Central documentation.” Each entry is dated and says what changed and why. Recent entries show the kind of detail a current company should be aware of: on October 1, 2026, Google updated its guide on using generative AI content with information from the Search Quality Raters guidelines; on September 8, 2026, it added documentation about regional differences in the Search experience; on August 28, 2026, it updated its site reputation policy, adjusting enforcement within the European Economic Area.
Ranking updates are listed separately, with start and end dates, on Google’s Search Status Dashboard. Between them, the two records let you check whether a change the company mentions happened, and when.
Questions that test it
Ask what has changed in Google’s guidance or ranking updates in the past year that matters for a site like yours, and what the company did differently because of it. Ask which tactics it has stopped using, when, and why. Ask where its team learns about changes; Google’s own documentation, announcements, and the update list should be among the answers, alongside its own tests on sites it controls. Ask how it handles a change that Google has not explained, and listen for an answer that separates what Google has said from what the company is guessing.
Tactics that should be gone
Some methods conflict with Google’s spam policies, which cover practices such as keyword stuffing, doorways, scaled content abuse, and link spam. A company still relying on pages that differ only by a keyword or a city name, on bulk link buying, or on mass-produced articles is working from methods those policies describe. Its answer to the question about stopped tactics should name these and say when it dropped them.
What a current answer sounds like
A current answer is specific, dated, and checkable: it names a change, says when it happened, and says what the company did about it. It admits uncertainty where Google has not explained something, and it points you to the source rather than asking you to take its word. If you can check two or three of its claims against Google’s records and they hold up, you have better evidence than any description of the company’s expertise.