"to his clients an SEO consultant isn't just a black hole they throw money into. They do expect to see results in the form of higher search ranking, and Google'

"to his clients an SEO consultant isn't just a black hole they throw money into. They do expect to see results in the form of higher search ranking, and Google's algorithm changes make it harder to deliver on that." Wouldn't it then be harder to demonstrate objective returns if Google's algorithms are so obfuscated? If they're not afraid to game Google for their customer's benefit, they're certainly not going to be afraid to game customer expectations and fudge their results for a living.