Choosing an agency
How to switch SEO agencies safely
Published 9 August 2026 · Updated 26 August 2026 · 6 min read
Changing agency is routine. Losing rankings while you do it is avoidable, and usually comes down to access, documentation and timing.
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Most ranking losses during an agency change are self inflicted: an account expires, a tracking script is removed, content is deleted in a tidy up, or nobody touches the site for two months. Work through this list in order and none of that happens.
Before you give notice
- Check who owns each account. Google Search Console, analytics, Google Business Profile, hosting, domain registrar, CMS, rank tracking and any email tools.
- Make yourself the owner, not an admin, on every one of them. This is the step that gets forgotten and the one that is hardest to fix afterwards.
- Export historical data. Sixteen months of Search Console data, your analytics history and your current rankings. You will want the baseline.
- Take a copy of the site. A crawl or at minimum a full URL list, so you can spot anything that disappears later.
- Read the contract. Notice period, ownership clauses and anything about content licensing.
What to ask for in the handover
- The keyword strategy and target list, with the reasoning behind it.
- Everything published in the last twelve months, page by page.
- The link building record: what was earned, from where, and how.
- Any technical work in progress or outstanding recommendations.
- Access to any tracking, tag management or call tracking configuration.
A departing agency is not obliged to be generous, but most will hand over cleanly if the request is professional and made in writing. If access is refused outright, that is a matter for the contract, and worth remembering as one of the red flags for next time.
Timing the change
Avoid switching in the middle of a site rebuild, immediately before your busiest season, or during a known Google update. A two week overlap between agencies is ideal. A two month gap is where damage happens, because nothing gets maintained and small technical problems go unnoticed.
The first month with the new agency
Resist the instinct to let a new agency start over. Wholesale rewrites, URL changes and redesigns in month one are the most common cause of a post switch ranking drop. Ask for a diagnosis first: what is working, what is not, and what should be left alone. Your first 90 days with an SEO agency sets out a sensible sequence, and if structural change genuinely is needed, site migration SEO Bristol is a specialism worth paying for rather than improvising.
When you are ready to line up a replacement, compare SEO agencies in Bristol by rating and specialism, or request quotes from Bristol SEO agencies and interview three using these questions.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Will my rankings drop when I switch agencies?
Not inherently. Rankings drop when work stops for months, when accounts are lost, or when a new agency makes large structural changes too quickly. Manage those three and a switch is usually invisible in the data.
Do I own the content the old agency wrote?
Usually yes, if you paid for it, but check the contract. Some agencies licence rather than assign content. If in doubt, raise it before you give notice rather than after.
How long should the overlap be?
Two weeks is enough for a clean handover of accounts and documentation. Longer than a month tends to create confusion about who is responsible for what.
Should I tell the old agency why I am leaving?
It is worth doing, briefly and factually. It occasionally produces a genuine fix, and it makes the handover smoother either way.
Written by the CompareSEO Bristol editorial team. We are an independent directory and we do not sell SEO services, so nothing here is written to win your business. Read our methodology for how we compile and check what we publish.
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