written by on 04/07/2012
We signed up with Clickconsult for the SEO of our 2 websites and in over the last 2.5 years they've had about £35k off us and where are we now?!! From pages 2-3, after Google's changes now our websites are NOT even in the first 1000!!!! They simply dropped off the planet!! We had security problems with our websites being hacked, they never sent us anymore reports after google's changes (they never even contacted us to let us know about these changes!) and for 6 months we've had no reports! We are now refusing to pay their last invoice just for about £350 due to their non-perfomance, they're threatening to sue us???!!!! Well all we can say is, go ahead Clickconsult, sue us! There's nothing better we'd like to do but see you in court as we will also put a counter claim for your zero performance!! Small businesses like us cannot afford to keep losing money to the likes of you! We have been in business now for almost 20 yrs and NEVER in all these years we came accross a company like yours! Do the decent thing and start doing business with integrity & dignity. To all of you considering to hire Clickconsult, it's up to you whether to believe this review or not. We are telling the truth, this is our experience with Clickconsult, unfortunately. This is the very first time we actually took the time to do any type of review as we're always too busy, but this had to be done. A company in Bury, Lancs. Update Click Consult has now agreed that they would not chase us for the last invoice which is only about £350
written by AlanCoventry on 04/07/2011
I had a contract with SEO Consult/Click Consult, trusting that they would do the work they promised and get anywhere near the results they projected. 5 months in (and a few thousand pounds) they had only achieved around 30 percent of the results they had projected for the first 3 months. That is 30 percent of the results in 166 percent of the time! SEO Consult/Click Consult were also not providing the physical work that they promised. After repeated efforts over many weeks to get them to catch up with what they agreed to, I terminated the contract. SEO Consult/Click Consult then wrongfully took me to court for the remainder of the fees. They told the court, among other things, that they had received no copy of my termination (even though they replied to it!) and produced a day one proposal to try to claim fulfilment of it even though there had been much improvement to that proposal prior to the signing of the contract. Basically, I was left having to prove they had provided the court woefully incomplete and contradicting evidence on numerous occasions. After their claim was dismissed they eventually admitted breach of contract. Rather than having to go back to court to claim against them, I accepted 500 pounds as settlement, when they made it clear that was all they would give. So basically it was a waste of a lot of money, time and effort, not to mention the stress for myself and my young family. Overall, a horrible experience.
Written on: 04/07/2011
My similar experience has been removed which brings me to ask what relationship this review site has with CC ? maybe someone would like to explain ??????
Written on: 27/06/2014
I had exactly the same experience with you. Long and unfair contract terms.
Written on: 29/02/2012
Unfortunately I haven't personally used another company since although a friend helped me out at the time which was very useful.
I am understandably a bit shy of trying another company.
There was a guy who left a similar review a few days ago which has now been removed - he said he had found a trustworthy company now and invited people to contact him. If it gets reinstated he is probably worth at least contacting.
I hope you find what you are looking for.
Written on: 28/02/2012
Can you recommend any other companies which you found? I was going to use them but after your comment I won't even though they have good reviews on this site.
Written on: 01/08/2011
An absolute waste of time resulting in loss of money and search engine ranking. Poor customer service. Ensure that everything is in writing and DO NOT sign any contract unless you have a clear break clause giving you the right to terminate the contract at any given time. Watch out for contradicting or over ruling clauses which they will try and enforce later down the line. In my honest opinion walk away and look at elance or guru for contractors worth their salt. These guys are still in the ice age of SEO techniques. Be warned!
Written on: 07/07/2011
Oncebitten, you just need to contact Review Centre with proof that you were in contract with Click Consult (copy of contract or emails or something) and they will reinstate your review. Perfect Getaways had to do that when we put a negative review about SEO Consult.
I believe all reviews had to provide proof (negative as well as positive) because of the number of reviews about SEO Consult that couldn't be substantiated.
Written on: 04/07/2011
you are not alone
written by PeteGolfer on 05/01/2011
Our own experience of SEO Consult (or Click Consult if you prefer, same company) is that they have a great sales team and enough good technical staff to do the occasional good bit of work but overall they are a company driven by three objectives, money, money and money (in that order). They manage by the contract (don't like it? Give us the full contract monies and you can leave. Don't like that? Check the contract, you can't get out of paying us ) and when you point out that they're not actually achieving results (poor choice of keywords, almost illiterate blogs etc) they propose further spend. In summary: Not cheap; Mediocre SEO skills; No concept of working as a partner; All about how 'you signed the contract, pay us our money...'. And then, at the end, they ask you to renew the contract. Unbelievable. Anyone want further detail, please feel free to contact us.
Written on: 12/01/2011
We at SEO Consult are very disappointed and deeply concerned to receive such a poor review about the business, customer service and quality of our work.
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<br/>At present we are unaware of who you are, what company you work for and therefore what business dealings we have had with you to date.
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<br/>SEO Consult take all concerns seriously and are eager to deal with any shortcomings with immediate action if and when they have occurred.
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<br/>Due to the unknown nature of your review we cannot confirm or deny your comments however we are sorry that you feel this way about our company and service.
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<br/>We ask you to make yourself known to a Director of Click Consult so we can action anything where required to address and resolve your concerns.
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<br/>For the benefit of any readers we would kindly ask you to identify your company on this review
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<br/>We look forward to hearing from you.
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Written on: 15/07/2011
Hello Guest,
Thanks for taking an interest in the reviews that we are currently hosting for SEO Consult. We just wanted to post a quick reply to your comment to answer the query that you had about us making contact with you in particular, and our reviewers in general.
On our site, comments, as opposed to reviews do not have to come from customers of the company. So normally we would not get in touch with you if you were just leaving a comment so long as it did not breach any of our site rules. When reviews are submitted, they are subjected to a series of technical checks before they are put live, and in the majority of cases no further checks are carried out. If we receive a complaint about a review then we investigate it and further more details evidence will be sought.
I can confirm that this review was investigated and reinstated after we found it to be genuine.
If you have further questions you are welcome to get in touch via contactus at reviewcentre (dot) com.
Review Centre Team.
Written on: 14/07/2011
Hi Perfect Getaways, I'm with a company that is currently talking to Click Consult and have reviewed an agreement, but haven't signed yet. If this comment comes through, then it could mean that the website let it through without verifying that I have contact with Click Consult. I saw this comment of yours and wanted to comment to contribute to the discussion. I find it hard to believe that PeterGolfer would want to hide his name from Click Consult to avoid being "offered free services...in return for the removal of their review". That doesn't sound so scary to me. There could be another reason, such as that the story isn't entirely correct and that the client wants to avoid being embarrassed or being accused of libel. I don't want to defend Click Consult too much here, and I see that there could be another reason PeterGolfer is hiding, but the reason stated above doesn't make sense. We'll see if I get contacted by reviewcentre. If I do, then your idea that PeterGolfer is a real client makes sense. If I don't get contacted, then who knows? He could be another competitor. I'll update everyone on what happens.
Written on: 07/07/2011
Hi Guest, as I understand it, PeteGolfer must be a legitimate customer of SEO Consult or Click Consult as Review Centre verify all reviews about SEO Consult and make sure that they did have dealings with them. I know this as Perfect Getaways had to prove our dealings with them when we put our negative review which is on the 2nd page. I can only assume PeteGolfer does not want his real name revealed to Click Consult as per the message put at the top of this page by Review Centre themselves.
Written on: 04/07/2011
I agree with the director here. Should someone wish to write a negative review on another company, how can this have credibility where the writer/business customer doesnt 1. identify their website being worked and 2. their company name. if your aim would be to warn others against using another company as large as SEO consult, then you are wasting your time really unless you do this. At least most of the positive reviews have identified themselves.
Written on: 21/01/2011
My name is Matt Bullas, Managing Director of Click Consult, I find your comment most strange "I found this review very helpful because it is exactly the way we felt" if this is the way you felt how has this review helped you? I question the credibility of the review itself, review centre have given the reviewer my details and we have also responded to the review yet no contact has been made, I am happy to review the project and be reasonable in my actions depending on the outcome of the review. The issue is however we have no record of this project or the person leaving the review. Anyone who experiences service not to a level laid out at the start of the project, or indeed if there is a particular issue, please contact me directly at [email protected] or call 0845 205 0292 and I will be happy to discuss any issues with you directly.
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<br/>In relation to this particular review I am still waiting for any contact.
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Written on: 21/01/2011
I found this review very helpful because it is exactly the way we felt.
written by PerfectGetaways on 30/09/2009
Perfect Getaways have been with SEO Consult for over 5 months and we have had no improvement in organic traffic so far. We have highlighted this with them on a number of occasions and held meetings. We are currently in a long term contract and they tell you it is a long-term investment. Time will tell whether we will get the pay-back from this contract. They say they have every confidence but it is all at our risk once into a 12 month contract with no way to get out of it. I will review here again in 6 months and let everybody know if it has turned around or whether it has been a complete waste of money. Any small/medium size company has to realise that the money spent with SEO Consult is not guaranteed to get you any business (you are just buying their time). As they said to us in our last meeting 'it is like giving money to a stockbroker...' We have not had a good experience so far.
Written on: 08/10/2009
Customer satisfaction is something that Click Consult / SEO Consult take immensely seriously. This, and delivery of results, are the two most important things for Click Consult.
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<br/>In the case of any SEO projects, regardless of agency, results on the first page of Google can not be guaranteed.
<br/>All SEO projects agreed with clients at Click Consult have been firstly agreed on keyword objectives. Timescales are then given to achieve results based upon the monthly investment. The contract duration is then agreed based upon the timescales to achieve results. Therefore the money committed to be paid by the client on a monthly basis is proportional to the monthly amount of work delivered, and given consistent delivery of this work for the full duration of the contract is what is recommended by us, based on experience, to deliver first page SEO results.
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<br/>In the case of this client and any other client of Click/SEO Consult, this is our proven model to deliver results, manage customer expectations and meet high levels of customer satisfaction. Transparency for customers who outsource SEO services is crucial to meet these obligations, hence Click Consult's pride in our online reporting suite www.clicktelligence.co.uk. Included in here for all clients are monthly ranking reports and all monthly work for the project strategy, as agreed at presales stage.
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<br/>As a gesture of goodwill for this customer the contract has been renegotiated and resigned to a lower monthly SEO fee. As a result the monthly work delivered has been reduced and therefore timescales to deliver results are setback further in line with the new contract duration. In order to maintain customer satisfaction this was all agreed in a face to face meeting with the client prior to the second agreement being signed only a few weeks ago.
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<br/>In conclusion, if clients do have questions or concerns regarding projects then their dedicated account managers at Click Consult all provide direct phone numbers and email addresses. They are contactable between 0900 and 1700 Monday to Friday.
<br/>We are always confident that we will achieve results for all clients within the duration of their contracts. Our track record to deliver results is clear to see within our client testimonials and with the first page result on Google.co.uk for the term "SEO". Click Consult and SEO Consult are pleased to provide the SEO and online marketing services to all customers and strive to deliver results and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction at all times.
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<br/>Finally, reviews of performance are conducted monthly through to contract completion by the account manager to ensure rankings are delivered within the timescales agreed with the client.
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Written on: 20/04/2011
I am totally confused >!.?
<br/>Is it a good company or not...?
<br/>I need a good company to do my SEO but I cant find it..
<br/>All sites in google are there property...
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Written on: 17/01/2011
I have to say that from my companies experience of SEO Consult I have found them perfectly good at responding to enquiries, achieving results that were agreed at previous meetings and generally 100% easy to deal with.
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<br/>My company has used SEO Consult for 2 years now and at each meeting we have doubled our spend because we have been that impressed. I do not know what the problem was with this client and if they had financial difficluties or not but from my experience, SEO Consult have been totally honest and that is why I keep investing a significant proportion of my online budget with them.
Written on: 14/01/2011
I have dealt with companies like this before and the truth is, if you actually build the backlinks, the rankings will increase. There is no hidden power that stops a website from increasing its ranking.
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<br/>Its quite obvious that the work was not done. If your search engine traffic and sales from this traffic does not increase after 5 months of backlink building, then you have just not built any. Simple as that!
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<br/>How could you possibly explain this mess.
Written on: 07/05/2010
"Perfect Getaways have been with SEO Consult for over 5 months and we have had no improvement in organic traffic so far."
<br/>- 5 months and no improvement?? That is potentially thousands of pounds and no improvement??
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<br/>"Time will tell whether we will get the pay-back from this contract. They say they have every confidence but it is all at our risk once into a 12 month contract with no way to get out of it. I will review here again in 6 months and let everybody know if it has turned around or whether it has been a complete waste of money."
<br/>- By the sounds of it, you didn't do much better with the next few thousand pounds either.
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<br/>People tied into contracts that they can't get out of even when it is obviously not working??
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<br/>I saw an article written by one of SEO Consults 'senior programmers' all about, "why many search engine optimisation campaigns don't bring the success that they should" - these are the very words of the company in question.
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<br/>The article basically talks about missing goals not being their fault.
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<br/>If SEO Consult set the goals, SEO Consult should 'pull out all the stops' to meet the goals. The article talks about them potentially needing more money mid term to meet the goals that they used to win the contract in the first place! The article is entitled, "5 Why Reasons Your SEO Campaign May Fail" on the 'SearchCowboys' website.
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<br/>Again, reading back, it does not sound like SEO Consult have handled this at all well. 'Perfect Getaways' paying big money for no/poor performance, then compounded by additional bills for 'intellectual property', the company having to remove everything off their website... that sounds like insult to injury!
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<br/>What are you playing at?!
Written on: 04/05/2010
SEO is the process of optimising a website to achieve higher rankings through Search Engines, organically. Dependent upon the industry and the chosen keywords to optimise this can vary timescales to achieve the objectives, most notably page one rankings of Google.
<br/>It would be wrong for SEO Consult to disclose the sensitive information that make up this unfortunate situation and therefore SEO Consult will not be drawn into addressing your points specifically. The comments made prior are factually correct.
<br/>However, what we will add will help any company make an informed SEO buying decision, whether it is with SEO Consult or another agency.
<br/>Firstly, all companies must identify KPIs. Estimated timescales to achieve page one rankings on search engines are always given for the top five homepage keywords in line with the monthly investment required. It is the obligation of anyone investing in SEO to be aware of financial commitments for the full amount of work to be delivered over the full duration.
<br/>Ranking results must be considered in relation to timescales provided on commencement of the contract. Sometimes we see clients make incremental progress throughout the contract which gives clients piece of mind they are making progress. However, some rankings may take the full duration to transpire. The overriding point to achieve rankings is that work is of the required standard.
<br/>We maintain transparency of work at all times. Off-page work and on-page content is always uploaded to Clicktelligence monthly so there is complete piece of mind with work delivered. This work is proven to increase rankings hence the positions we are for our key terms across the search engines and also for many of our clients. You can see many of their reviews on Review Centre.
<br/>Every one of our 300 clients invest to achieve results, whether it is through SEO or other online marketing formats. It is our utmost duty to deliver these results and manage expectations of all clients, without results we do not maintain our high client retention rate. In return, we ask clients to meet their monthly payments so KPIs have the best chance of being achieved.
<br/>All points made in this and prior posts have covered all points made in this situation
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Written on: 22/04/2010
I think you have misread their review of your company. You say, "resolve their financial situation", as if the problem was with them, but what they actually said was, "refused to make any more payments", and "this was not evident in the results they got for us", (from the review dates this was after 9 or 10 months of work from yourselves) - both suggesting that the problem was with SEO Consult as opposed to them. I think (may be wrong) that your comment was a cheap shot at their honest opinion.
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<br/>If SEO Consult was providing a good return for their investment, surely there would have been no issues in their enthusiasm to stay and pay for more work.
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<br/>If SEO Consult provided enough, effective work for 'Perfect Getaways', why would they not have stayed - either not good enough work, or not enough work. If you were good enough, surely they would have wanted you to remain working for them?
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<br/>It does not look like SEO Consult have dealt very well with the situation (in my opinion).
Written on: 19/04/2010
Contracts: Perfect Getaways signed up to an SEO strategy in which a monthly fee, duration terms and IPR terms were all agreed in writing. In return Click Consult have made a commitment to deliver a certain amount of work per month for that duration in order to achieve KPIs on set keywords.
<br/>All contracts signed by clients with us or in any business are usually negotiable. For us, we wish to work with varied clients to achieve their KPIs for search marketing campaigns therefore open to negotiation on most terms within our contract, including the points mentioned by Perfect Getaways in their review, however were not negotiated or amended before putting pen to paper.
<br/>Invoices and Payments: we expect them to be paid on the first of each month in line with their terms of the contracts. We appreciate that clients may run late on payments and there may be a slight delay, in which case we show flexibility. However we reasonably expect payments to be made on the 1st or within 14 days after falling due.
<br/>Where invoices remain overdue we have a process for reminding clients with letters, to a maximum of five letters sent in total, depending on the circumstances. If payments continue over 30 days due from the 1st of the month then the contract comes into material breach of the clients' payment terms.
<br/>However, this is not a one-sided obligation, Click and SEO Consult ensure all work is delivered and reported on in our reporting suite Clicktelligence.co.uk on a monthly basis so clients have complete transparency.
<br/>In the case of Perfect Getaways, the invoices remained overdue by 53 days. Therefore, considerable time was given to the company to resolve their financial situation despite the work being completed, this was not forthcoming and the contract was terminated. We believe the time given to resolve the issue was more than reasonable in any business dealing.
<br/>Performance: All clients sign up to us with a monthly fee over a contract duration and a estimated timescales to achieve KPIs on agreed keywords are always agreed prior to contract signing. In the case of Perfect Getaways it has been proven to them that rankings were achieved in line with the targets after contract completion and in line with the time and investment already made on the website, given the further investment until contract completion we were very confident of achieving results.
<br/>We always give estimated timescales to achieve results and require the full duration signed for to prove these metrics, at which point every customer has the opportunity to make a commercial decision whether to continue or not.
<br/>We are a results driven organisation, we are proud of the customers we work for and strive for results. We are truly focused on customers who are committed to meeting their obligations in regards to invoices and in return we deliver a service and relationship fitting of someone who wants to deliver results for our clients.
<br/>Our clients' success is our success, this is how we will continue to grow as a company.
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Written on: 09/04/2010
Following on from on from my original review, PerfectGetaways.co.uk's contract was terminated by SEO Consult in February when we refused to make any more payments. Within two days we were hit with an invoice for the whole outstanding contract of over £8,000 which we refused to pay. Two months later, we have now been hit with further bills for half the monthly contract for 'Intellectual Property' until we take everything off the website.
A few things to look out for:
Their contract automatically renews every twelve months for another twelve months with no rights of dispute or termination. You have to serve a minimum of one month's notice of termination so if you don't terminate after 11 months you are stuck with them for another year and so on and so on.... Any attempt to get out of the contract leaves you with a bill for the whole outstanding term of up to 12 months.
If you ever terminate the contract you must continue to pay half of the contract fee indefinitely or remove all content they have ever done for you - effectively leaving your website completely bare of SEO content even though you paid for it. We have had to remove everything they ever produced even though we had paid them to do it.
The company say they are results-driven, however, this was not evident in the results they got for us.
Written on: 04/01/2010
I found this review very helpful because we finally felt that we were not alone in experiencing poor work and performance from SEO Consult. Our expectations were certainly not addressed or achieved. I know SEO work can take time to take effect but when there is no urgency, understanding and the quality of work is poor then you lose patience and confidence
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Jayzee01's Comment
Written on: 16/07/2012
Hi, I really feel for you having to deal with SEO Consult and that looks a HUGE sum of money to lose. We went through exactly the same problems as did others that have written on here that have since been removed - hence the note from Review Centre above.
Perfect Getaways (on page 4 now of reviews) has a full folder about SEO Consult and I would suggest you get in touch re: witness statements, evidence etc.
I would not get too upset about the threat of legal action as this looks to me to be quite a common occurrence from what I've seen although the documentation of that seems to have disappeared from these pages.
Btc1812's Comment
Written on: 07/08/2012
@Nationwide Personal Injury: we have had to go through rigorous checks done by reviewcentre.com to ensure our review is totally genuine!! So please do not insult us by accusing us of being a Click Consult competitor! Our website: btc-nw.co.uk - check if you could find us anywhere at all on Google using keywords: company formations, ltd company formations, etc. We are suing Click Consult! We are not a competitor! Are you part of Click Consult or something?!! Or have you been "paid" by them?
Nationwidepersonalinjuryfirm's Comment
Written on: 25/07/2012
sounds like a review off a competitor to me does this ...
Btc1812's Comment
Written on: 19/07/2012
UPDATE
The following is an exact extract from an email from Click Consult regarding this posting and shows that they go back on their word and you cannot trust them in any shape or form;
"The contract your organisation has with Click Consult has not yet officially ended and you still have £364.80 left to pay under the terms of the contract. However, we would be willing to immediately cancel the contract and waive the remaining fee due if you remove the review that has been posted on the review centre website."
"Kate Thomas
Senior Account Manager
Click Consult Limited"
There is more self damning evidedence within the rest of the email which I can save for future postings. They have not listened to our concerns, complaints or anything they are just afraid of their reputation and will carry on threatening us to try and achieve their outcome
Btc1812's Comment
Written on: 18/07/2012
Thank you for your responses. No, we won't remove our review. Innocent people must know how Clickconsult treated us before they make their decisions.
Our new SEO company has just had a look at the work that Clickconsult had done in the past and their exact comments are "it is shocking to see what low quality work Click Consult are placing for their clients!.
I don't understand why they do business the way they do, it just doesn't make any business sense at all! :(