Switching SEO agency: the checklist before you cancel

Recover your access before announcing you are leaving

Start by checking what is in your name. The domain name, hosting, website, its content and analytics accounts should belong to you, or at the very least be accessible to you with an owner or administrator role. Do this check while the relationship with the agency is still straightforward.

The checklist: the domain name and its DNS zone, hosting and access to the website (admin panel, server or code repository), Google Search Console, Google Analytics or whichever analytics tool is used, the Google Business Profile and the accounts of paid tools linked to the website. For each one, note who owns it and which email address it is attached to.

Also recover the content produced: texts, images, articles and source files where they exist. If an account is in the agency’s name, ask in writing for it to be transferred rather than merely shared. An account attached to an address you do not control can become hard to recover once the contract ends.

Reread the contract, the commitment and the notice period

Find the signed contract and its terms and conditions. Note the commitment period, the renewal date, the cancellation notice period and the required form for sending it. A contract that renews automatically can bind you for a new period if the notice deadline is missed.

Then check what the contract says about ownership. Are the website and content assigned to you? Does the agency keep elements such as a theme, a licence or an in-house tool? What happens to hosting when the contract ends? These answers determine what can be taken over without rebuilding.

Finally, compare the services agreed with what you actually receive. A number of articles, technical fixes or rank tracking written into the contract can be verified. If a legal point remains unclear, have the contract reviewed by your adviser.

Assess the work actually done

A monthly report is not enough to judge a service. Ask for the list of actions carried out over a period: technical fixes, pages edited or created, articles published, tickets opened and closed. An open ticket is not a fixed bug.

Then check that list against the website. Do the pages mentioned exist, are they correct and reachable from the menu? Does the contact form work? In Search Console, look at indexed pages, reported errors and the trend in clicks on searches related to your services. The rankings tracked by the agency should match searches your clients actually make.

The case of a Paris law firm shows the possible gap between figures considered good and the actual state of the website: 292 URLs returning 404 found in search data and 97 text corrections across 32 files. This review formed the basis for the decisions. The guide to checks before publishing a website suggests other checks you can do yourself.

How an SEO takeover works

A takeover starts with an assessment: the website, the current contract, access and the issues to address. The aim is to know what works, what is blocking and what can be improved in what already exists. Switching agency does not necessarily mean rebuilding the website.

The handover is then planned around your deadlines. Access is transferred, content and monitoring are taken over, and dependencies are identified, such as hosting managed by the former agency. The transfer must be organised before any interruption of the existing service.

During the first weeks, check that nothing gets lost: forms, redirects from old URLs, the Google Business Profile and enquiry tracking. These simple checks quickly reveal anything overlooked in the change of provider.

At ClairAI, this kind of transfer goes through our SEO contract takeover programme. The takeover is done at the same price as your current agency, with no takeover fee, and the assessment is free. Recovering access, the notice period, content and the handover timeline are exactly the points covered when the transition is scheduled with ClairAI. If technical fixes are needed, they are quoted at a fixed price before you decide. Work starts as soon as we take over; no ranking or number of enquiries is guaranteed.

Questions to ask your next provider

The new provider should be able to explain in concrete terms what they will do differently. Ask them the questions you wish you had asked the agency you are leaving:

1. What actions will be carried out in the first month, and how will you see them?
2. Which indicators will be tracked: enquiries received, contact journeys, visibility for your services, issues fixed?
3. Who is your contact, and who does the work?
4. Who owns the access, the content and the website, during and after the contract?
5. How would leaving work, should you one day decide to switch again?

Be wary of a promise of first place on Google: nobody can guarantee it. A serious answer describes a method, priorities and how you will be able to see the work. The report should describe what was done, not stand in for the work itself.