How to Vet an SEO Agency's Case Studies (With a Real One)
A Search Console checklist for any SEO case study: what proof each claim needs, the red flags, and a real example from a site we own, drop included.
Elmrank editorial6 min readLast reviewed
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Google's own advice on hiring an SEO points the same way: ask for examples and references. One of the questions it tells you to ask is "Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?", and under business references it says "Ask past clients if they felt that this SEO provided useful service, was easy to work with, and produced positive results." The checklist below is how we'd test the answers.
The short version
- The claim names a metric, a date range and a starting number
- The chart is from Search Console, set to Web search, final data
- The range starts before the work did and runs to today
- Clicks are shown, not only impressions or average position
- Drops are in the story, with an explanation or an honest 'we don't know'
- The work (pages, fixes) is listed with dates you can match to the chart
- You can see it live: a screen share or a restricted user on the property
- Something beyond clicks: leads, calls or sales, from their analytics or CRM
What each claim needs to prove it
| Claim in the case study | Evidence you should see | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| "Traffic grew 400%" | Clicks from the Performance report, with both dates and the starting number | A percentage with no base, or "traffic" from an unnamed tool |
| "We got them to #1" | The query, its clicks and its position over time | One trophy keyword nobody searches |
| "Results in 90 days" | A chart that starts before the engagement, with the start date marked | A chart that starts at the lowest point |
| "Steady growth" | The full range up to the latest data, drops included | A chart that ends at the peak |
| "Organic leads up" | Analytics or CRM data tied to landing pages | Only Search Console, which doesn't track sales |
| "Non-brand growth" | A query filter that excludes the brand name | Total clicks presented as non-brand |
| "We published 50 pages" | A dated list of pages, which you can filter in the Pages tab | Work you can't match to any date on the chart |
A few of these need a word of explanation.
Clicks beat impressions
Search Console counts an impression when your site appears in results and a click when someone lands on it. Impressions can climb while the share of people clicking falls: on our card game site below, click-through rate went from 4.1% in June to 2.0% in September. A case study that leads with impressions is usually telling you something by leaving clicks out.
Average position can hide a collapse
In the chart, average position is "the average position of the topmost result from your entire site." It only covers searches where your site showed up, so it can sit still while traffic halves. Our own example below shows exactly that.
Brand searches flatter everyone
Search Console lets you filter queries that do or don't contain a brand name. Google warns that "Anonymized queries are dropped when filtering by query," so the split is approximate, but it's still worth asking for.
Today's numbers move
The newest data in the Performance report can be preliminary, "still being collected and may change in the next few hours." Ask for complete days.
How to see the data without handing over your site
You don't need anyone's password. Search Console has three levels of access: an owner has full control, a full user can view all data and take some actions, and a restricted user "Has simple view rights on most data." An agency proud of a result can add you as a restricted user on a client property (with the client's permission) or share its screen and click through the report while you watch.
The same rule runs the other way. Google's hiring advice says that if an SEO offers you an audit, "only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don't grant them write access)."
Reddit's buyers say much the same. One commenter on r/SEO advised: "research case studies and talk with actual clients of theirs if possible." Another, on r/smallbusiness, doubted case studies altogether: "Any decent agency can make those numbers look good on paper for a few months." That commenter would rather weigh "real reviews from actual clients" and watch whether an agency will "tell you when something isn't working." We agree with the second part, and it's one more reason to ask for the full date range: a case study that shows the months after the peak is the agency telling you when something didn't work.
A case study done to this standard
Here's one we'd accept from an agency, built from a site we own and run: a trading card game guide site with set release guides, deck guides, beginner how-tos and collector value pieces. It isn't a client, and its name and domain stay hidden. Every number is from Search Console, Web search, final data, pulled through the API on October 13, 2026.
Starting point
The property's data starts on May 31, 2026, and the first click came on June 1.
What we did
The site published 372 articles in total. New articles per week came in bursts: most of them in June, almost none in July, then a steady run from late August.
What happened
| Month | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Avg. position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2026 | 2,458 | 60,161 | 4.1% | 7.4 |
| July 2026 | 6,437 | 212,273 | 3.0% | 7.6 |
| August 2026 | 10,938 | 434,605 | 2.5% | 7.6 |
| September 2026 | 5,577 | 282,292 | 2.0% | 7.4 |
| October 1 to 10 | 1,509 | 70,323 | 2.1% | 7.4 |
The drop
Clicks peaked at 3,106 in the week of August 10 and then fell by about half in September. The last 28 days (to October 10) brought 4,947 clicks, 20% fewer than the same stretch ten weeks earlier. Look at the average position column while you're here: it barely moved, from 7.6 to 7.4, while clicks halved. That's the trap from the checklist above, in our own data.
What we can't explain
We haven't pinned down the cause of the September drop. Publishing didn't stop: the site added 85 new articles in weeks starting in September, more than in August, and clicks still fell. We'd rather say that than invent a reason.
The same data, told badly
Crop the chart to June 1 through the week of August 10 and this site went from 547 clicks a week to 3,106, which an agency deck would call 468% growth. Every number in that sentence is true, and the story is still wrong, because the chart stops at the peak.
Where it falls short of our own checklist
You can't open this property yourself, because the queries and URLs would identify the site. It also leaves out revenue, which we haven't published for any of our sites. Those are fair marks against it, and you should mark any agency down for the same gaps.
The other two sites we run are on our use cases page, including a game news site that has slipped since its June peak.
Questions that sort agencies quickly
Ask these on the first call and watch how long the answers take.
- Can you show me this case study in Search Console, live?
- When did the engagement start, and where is that date on the chart?
- What happened after the period in the case study?
- Which clicks came from brand searches?
- What did you change or publish, and when?
- What did it do for the client's leads or sales?
We'd expect a good agency to have most of this ready, and to say which parts it can't share and why. One r/smallbusiness commenter suggested asking for case studies from your exact niche and making the agency "show what they did not just traffic graphs." We agree, and we'd add one thing: ask what went wrong. All three of our sites have had down weeks, and an agency that can't name one of its own hasn't shown you its whole record.
Our own numbers, down weeks included, sit next to the plan on our SEO services page.
How we know this
Written by Elmrank editorial. Every source below was read on the date shown; the page was last reviewed on Oct 14, 2026.
- Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO? Tips for hiring an SEO, accessed Oct 14, 2026
- Search Console Help, Performance report (Search results), accessed Oct 14, 2026
- Search Console Help, How are you performing on Google?, accessed Oct 14, 2026
- Search Console Help, Managing owners, users, and permissions, accessed Oct 14, 2026
- Search Console Help, preliminary data, accessed Oct 14, 2026
- r/smallbusiness, How do you actually choose a good SEO agency in 2026? (comments by u/BeautifulDesign2928, u/Corgi-Ancient), accessed Oct 14, 2026
- r/SEO, Sanity checking my shortlist of LLM SEO agency options (comment by u/SerbianContent), accessed Oct 14, 2026
- Elmrank, Search Console data for three sites we own (snapshot Oct 13, 2026), accessed Oct 14, 2026
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