What actually drives the price
The authority of the site hosting the problem
This dominates everything else. A complaint on a low-traffic forum can often be displaced with a moderate amount of work. A well-linked investigative piece on a major news domain may resist years of effort, because you are competing against a site with vastly more authority than anything you can realistically build.
Two clients with superficially identical problems — "one bad result on page one" — can face projects that differ by an order of magnitude in cost. This is the single biggest reason honest firms will not quote before assessing.
How distinctive your name is
A common name has competing content already, which usually helps: there is more to work with and the searcher is less certain any result is you. A highly distinctive name means every result about you is unambiguous — cleaner when things are good, harder when they are not.
How much legitimate presence you already have
A client with an established site, real press coverage and active profiles has assets to strengthen. Someone starting from nothing needs those built first, which is more work up front — though it often produces faster movement once done, since there was little competing before.
How many results need addressing
One bad result is a project. Five across two pages is a campaign. Cost scales with the number of positions you need to fill, not just the number of problems.
The pricing models you will encounter
Monthly retainer
The most common, and generally the most honest fit, because the work is genuinely ongoing. You are buying a level of effort per month. The important question is not the number but what it buys — ask how many hours, on what, and what the reporting shows.
Below a certain price point there simply is not enough time in the budget to do real work. What tends to get delivered instead is automated profile creation and an impressive-looking monthly report. The wasted money is bad; the wasted months are worse.
Project or fixed-scope
Suits a defined problem with a defined endpoint — one result, one campaign. Cleaner to evaluate, and appropriate where the scope is genuinely bounded. Make sure "complete" is defined in writing before you start.
Pay-per-removal
Superficially attractive, since you pay only for results. The catch is the incentive it creates: the provider is motivated toward whatever removes content fastest, which sometimes means paying removal-fee sites on your behalf. That can flag you as someone willing to pay and attract further listings. If you consider this model, ask precisely what method will be used.
Quoting practices that should worry you
- A price before an assessment. Without knowing what is ranking and how strong it is, a quote is a guess or a script.
- Guaranteed removal. Almost nobody can guarantee removal of lawful third-party content. This is the clearest single warning sign.
- Guaranteed timeframes for a ranking position. No provider controls search engines.
- Pressure to sign immediately. Reputation clients are often distressed, and some firms price accordingly. Urgency is a sales tactic here far more often than a technical necessity.
- Vagueness about method. If a provider will not explain what they will actually do, it is often because the answer involves tactics that create a second problem later.
What to ask before you pay anyone
- What specifically is ranking, and why do you think it ranks?
- Which of these results do you expect to move, and which do you not?
- What methods will you use? Name them.
- What does the monthly reporting actually show?
- What happens if it does not work?
A provider who answers all five plainly is worth talking to, whatever they charge. One who deflects on any of them is telling you something.
Our approach
We assess first and quote after, because the assessment is what determines the number. The assessment is free, and its conclusion is sometimes that the result will not move — in which case we say so rather than sell you twelve months of proving it.
Our ongoing plans are published, and project work is quoted after the audit.