You Paid for SEO. So Why Can’t Google Find You?

A common phrase I hear from new clients is:

“We already paid someone to handle the SEO.”

And then, five minutes later:

“But when I Google myself… my site isn’t there.”

That disconnect is exactly what sparked a recent Client Collab I worked on for Angela Skurtu of Open Bedroom Doors, who paid for SEO but is not ranking. It’s far more common than most people realize.

A playlist of the complete SEO cleanup project, from consult to handoff

Angela had done everything right on paper.

She invested in a new website.

She paid another company to “point” her old site to the new one.

She assumed that meant Google would naturally follow.

It didn’t.

In fact, when Angela searched for herself, she found:

• Her old website, not the new one

• Buried eight pages deep in search results

• With no clear signal telling Google which site mattered anymore

So we did what I almost always have to do in situations like this:

We went backward before we could move forward.

The Real Problem Wasn’t SEO, It Was the Handoff

Here’s the thing most people don’t tell you:

SEO isn’t a checkbox. And website migrations are one of the easiest ways to quietly break everything. What looked like a simple redirect job turned out to be:

• Partial or incorrect domain forwarding

• No clean 301 redirect strategy

• Conflicting signals between the old site, the new site, and Google

• Zero verification that the work actually functioned after it was done

Nothing was malicious. Nothing was dramatic. It was just… unfinished, and unfinished SEO is often worse than no SEO at all.

Why This Happens So Often

Most vendors focus on tasks, not systems. They:

• Point a domain

• Close a ticket

• Send an invoice

But they don’t:

• Confirm index behavior

• Check search visibility post-migration

• Audit what Google is actually seeing

• Explain what the client should expect over time

So clients walk away thinking something is “handled,” when in reality, it’s just technically incomplete.

What We Actually Had to Do

In this collab, the work wasn’t flashy — but it was essential:

• Auditing what the previous company actually changed

• Tracing where domains were (and weren’t) pointing

• Identifying why Google still trusted the old site

• Re-establishing clear signals for the new site

• Making sure future changes wouldn’t re-break everything

This is the kind of cleanup work nobody wants to pay for... until they realize their business is effectively invisible.

The Bigger Lesson for Business Owners

If you’re investing in SEO, site migrations, or platform changes, here’s the truth:

If no one can explain how it works

If no one checks what happens after

If no one shows you what Google is seeing

Then the work isn’t finished, even if it’s paid for. Good SEO isn’t magic. It’s structure, continuity, and accountability, and unfortunately, fixing it later almost always costs more than doing it correctly the first time.

If This Sounds Familiar

If you:

• Can’t find your site when you search for yourself

• Still see an old website ranking

• Recently migrated platforms or domains

• Were told “it’s all set” without explanation

You’re not alone! And, you are not imagining things. This is exactly the kind of quiet, expensive mess I help untangle. Purchase my SEO Audit service today, or if you're ready to overhaul your page ranking altogether, check out my complete SEO Package.