Alongside your monthly report, check who at your firm controls the accounts behind it.
When I founded Inoriseo in 2017, keeping the firm’s accounts in the firm’s hands was part of how I wanted to work. You hire someone to help bring in clients. Your records should stay with your firm through a change of agency.
Start with your own login
On your first call with the agency, open each Google account your firm uses. Sign in yourself. Your own login lets you check the access your firm holds.
Keep a short note with the name of each account, the person at your firm responsible for it and their role. A role is the set of things Google lets that person do. Leave passwords out of the note. Keep those and the way to recover a lost login with whoever handles your firm’s security.
Try this question: “If our main contact is away, who can help us get back in?” Settle it now, while everyone is on the call. Update the note when the people responsible change.
If an old account needs recovery, ask your website contact to help restore access and preserve its history.
Keep the power to remove access
Start with one question: “Who at our firm can remove the agency’s access?” The answer differs for each Google service.
Search Console: keep your firm as a verified owner. This service shows how your site performs in Google Search. Ask your website contact to help you prove to Google that your firm controls the site. Google calls this “verified ownership.”
Have that person check the owner details with you while you are signed in. If only the agency has proved control, ask your website contact to set up your firm’s own proof. Keep a note of how it was done. Google’s permissions guide explains which roles let the agency view data or make changes.
Business Profile: keep your firm as the primary owner. A manager can do daily work but cannot add or remove people or remove the profile. An owner has those powers. There can be several owners, but only one primary owner.
Check the role beside your firm’s email address with the agency. If the agency holds primary ownership, ask it to arrange the transfer to your chosen firm account. Primary ownership gives your firm control over who has access.
Analytics: ask for Administrator access to the whole account. Have the agency show you that your firm’s email has this role. It lets you remove users when you need to.
Check that your access covers the account, not just the website’s data within it. Google calls that data area a “property.” Someone can be an Administrator for that property and still lack the account access needed to delete users.
Match the agency’s role to the job
Now turn to the agency’s request. Reading figures, changing settings and adding people are different jobs. The role needs to fit the job.
If the agency requests permission to manage users, ask: “What work will you do that needs this?” Get the task named before you send the invitation so you can choose the right role.
Give the agency enough access to carry out that task. If it needs more access for a short job, agree to review the role when that job ends. Confirm who uses the email address you are inviting and who will tell you when the agency’s team changes.
While you are together, pick a figure from your monthly report. Have the agency show you where it comes from in your account. You can leave the daily work to them and still know where to look when a number seems wrong.
An access-request email you can send
Send this example email to your main agency contact. Copy the person at your firm responsible for Google access. Your website contact can help with the Search Console step; they handle the site changes, while the agency arranges its team’s access.
Subject: Confirm our firm’s Google access before we add your team
Please arrange access for [firm’s Google email] and confirm the roles below in writing. If someone else must make a change, please name them and the next step.
For Business Profile, please confirm who holds primary ownership. If your agency holds it, please arrange a transfer to our firm. For Search Console, please work with our website contact to confirm our firm’s own proof of site control. For Analytics, please confirm our firm has Administrator access to the whole account.
Please list each account’s name, our firm’s email and its role. Include the email addresses your team wants us to invite, the roles requested and the work each role is needed for.
Please confirm our access will stay in place when your work ends. Once any changes are complete, let’s check them from our own login before we add your team.
Use the reply as your checklist during the call. If a role on screen differs from the reply, have the agency correct it. Keep unfinished changes on your list with a named person and a next step.
Put the ownership promise in writing
Put ownership of your paid-for website copy in the agreement too. I believe you should own what you pay for.
At Inoriseo, this is our wording: “You own your domain, your website and your Google accounts (Search Console, Business Profile, Analytics). We work inside your accounts, never ours. Content we create for you is yours once it’s paid for. If you leave, you keep all of it.”
Compare that with the promise you are being offered. For work tied to payment, ask which pages or files are paid for and which have been delivered. Include the domain and website, too. Who can make an urgent change to your site?
For the wider terms, see Inoriseo’s guide to what a law-firm SEO agreement should include.
Plan a smooth handover
When the agency leaves, check both its Search Console role and the proof it used to gain ownership.
Google checks proof that someone controls your site before giving them ownership. It calls that proof a “verification token.” If the agency’s token stays in place, it may be able to get back in after you remove its name.
Have your website contact remove any proof the old agency can use to regain access. They need to keep your firm’s own proof in place and check what else relies on anything they plan to remove.
Have your website contact check unfamiliar records before making changes.
The handover is complete when the old access is gone and your login, reports and linked services still work.
I want the end of an agency relationship to be a change in who does the work. Your firm’s records stay with you.
Questions law-firm owners ask
Does the agency need the same role in every Google account?
No. Each service has its own roles. Match the role to the task the agency will do in that account.
What if someone else at my firm handles the accounts?
Keep their name and role with your account details. Agree who can help you get back in when that person is away.
What do I send my website contact when the agency leaves?
Ask them to remove the old agency’s access and any proof it can use to regain Search Console ownership. Have them keep your firm’s own proof valid and confirm your reports still work.
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