Recovery is a different job from ordinary SEO, and the difference is the order. The first month is diagnosis and undoing, not new work. An agency that proposes a content plan before it has looked at what was already done is about to build on the same broken foundation.

First: get your accounts back

Before anything technical, confirm you own what should be yours: domain registrar, hosting and website admin, Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Business Profile, and any ad accounts.

If the previous agency holds them, recovering access can take weeks, particularly a Business Profile. Start this on day one, in parallel with everything else, because nothing else can be verified without it.

Second: find out what was actually done

Check for a manual action. Search Console, Security and Manual Actions. Rare, but it changes the whole plan if present.

Look at the backlink profile. Sudden growth, irrelevant industries, repeated exact-match anchor text or recognisable networks all point at bought links.

Read the content they published. Open ten pages and read them properly. Spun or generic text, keyword repetition, near-identical location pages and content with no local specifics are the common signatures.

Check indexing. The Pages report will show whether pages were noindexed, blocked or published and never filed.

Check the technical state. Redirects after any migration, canonical tags, site speed, and whether tracking still works.

Compare traffic to the engagement dates. Line up the analytics chart against when they started. Whether it declined from the beginning or after a specific change tells you a great deal.

Third: undo in the right order

Problem	Action	Effect visible in
Accidental noindex or blocking	Remove, request indexing	1 to 4 weeks
Broken redirects after migration	Map old URLs to new	2 to 6 weeks
Broken tracking	Reinstall, verify with a test	Immediate
Pages competing with each other	Consolidate and redirect	4 to 8 weeks
Thin or spun content	Rewrite the useful, remove the rest	1 to 3 months
Toxic backlinks	Disavow, carefully and selectively	2 to 6 months

Sequence matters. Deal with pages that still earn traffic last, so you are not removing the little that works while the replacements are still being built.

The disavow warning

Disavowing links is the step most likely to make things worse. A file that sweeps up legitimate links alongside bad ones removes authority you needed, and the damage is slow to reverse.

Disavow only links that are clearly harmful and only when there is a real problem to solve. If there is no manual action and the profile is merely low quality rather than toxic, the better route is to earn genuine links so the profile normalises around them.

What recovery realistically looks like

Month one: diagnosis, account recovery, fixing anything technical. Little visible ranking change.

Months two and three: content clean-up and consolidation. Rankings often move first here, because removing competing pages resolves confusion Google had.

Months three to six: rebuilding. Proper service and location pages, genuine links, reviews.

Months six to twelve: normal growth, from a sound base.

Cases involving a manual action or a large volume of published junk take longer, because the removal itself has to be crawled and reprocessed.

What to ask the next agency

Will every account be in my name, with you added as a user? Will you diagnose before proposing work, and what will that diagnosis cover? What is the notice period? What will you report monthly, and does it include enquiries rather than only rankings? What would make you tell me to stop spending?

That last question is the useful one. An agency willing to say "your site is fine, spend the money on ads instead" is an agency that will tell you the truth later.

Juicy Designs takes over damaged accounts regularly, starting with an SEO audit rather than a proposal, month-to-month, every account in the client's name. See SEO services or get in touch. Related: switching agencies and judging whether SEO is working.

Frequently asked questions

Who can fix my website SEO after a bad agency?

Any competent SEO agency can, but the first job is diagnosis rather than new work. A recovery starts by finding what was done, undoing anything harmful, recovering account access, and rebuilding from whatever is salvageable.

What damage does a bad agency usually leave?

Thin or spun content published at volume, risky backlinks, accounts held in the agency's name, broken tracking, keyword-stuffed pages, and sometimes a site migration that lost its redirects.

How long does recovery take?

Three to six months for most cases. Removing harmful work shows up faster than building new authority, so early gains are common followed by a slower climb.

Will I lose my rankings during the clean-up?

Sometimes temporarily, when thin pages are removed or consolidated. A careful recovery sequences the changes so the pages that still earn traffic are dealt with last.

What should I check before hiring the next agency?

That every account will be in your name, that the contract is month-to-month, that they will diagnose before proposing work, and that they report enquiries rather than only rankings.