Clients holding designer responsible for Google rank

Business
1

Hi. Forgive me if I ramble a bit, but I could use the advice of someone in the know.

I’m a designer who never had trouble with clients until last month. I finished a little 4-page job and the day after setting it live my client wrote me complaining that she was not showing up on Google. Now, I tried to explain to her that it takes some time and some doing. And she had not once mentioned Google or any other search engine during the process. But here she was now that the site was live: “Google, Google, Google”. She finally let up when her site got indexed.

The job I did right after her was a redesign of an existing site–a GoDaddy template. For this one the client specifically told me, “I only want you to worry about the design. I am paying for the GoDaddy SEO service, and they will take care of that.” Silly me, I listened to her.

I completed the site on time and to her satisfaction. But again, she only started talking about Google after the site went live. Her site abc.com apparently is ranked #1 for abc’s. Right now, after the fact, she is trying to hedge her bets and set me up as responsible if the site slips after the new pages are indexed.

I use a Web Design Agreement with all my clients that specifically states “The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the webpages and website is with client. In no event will Mecha51 be liable to the client or any third party for any damages, including any lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages arising out of the operation of or inability to operate these webpages or website, even if Mecha51 has been advised of the possibility of such damages.”

Does this cover my butt in case her site slips in the rankings and she tries to pin it on me?? Thanks in advance.

2

Reading this post back over, I rambled more than I first thought. I’m an old fart and need to learn the younger generation’s gift for brevity. I should have also stated that I did design the sites organically optimized for search.

So here are the Cliff Notes (or Twitter) versions of my initial queries:

Has anyone else had experience with clients muddling design work & SEO?

How do you protect yourself from a liability standpoint, if this is even necessary?

3

Hmmm, I’m no lawyer but it sounds like you’re covered to me. Have you been paid?

4

Yes.

I guess I was wondering if anyone else had seen anything like this since search rankings are so paramount to a lot of business models, yet few seem to really understand what they are based on.

5

if she did not pay anything for SEO and this was not part of the agreement she does not have anything to complain

6

Looks to me like that was specifically EXCLUDED from the contract.

7

I’d say you’ve covered yourself there pretty well, but some people really just don’t get it no matter how well you explain things beforehand.

Steve