hey carmen & all others, first of all, good last post of yours! couldn't have summed it up better myself, as i work in the same field and yes, i sometimes have a hard time distancing myself from scammers and spammers as our field of work is brimming with such folks, unfortunately-- now to get stuff back on track again---: you said.. "For example, a business hires a SEO (search engine optimization) company for a 3 months contract. The company performs optimization so that it has complete control over it. ----- any business owner handing over "complete control" is simply naive and acts completely irrational. customers sometimes want to hand over responsibility to you as a contractor so they can avoid making any effort themselves in the process. not actively involving the customer is a grave mistake in my opinion. "This means it can turn the results off with a click if the business has any intention of getting out of the contract at the end of 3 months." ------ again, who would risk losing control?? i've never ever heard of such behaviour, client-side that is. "This is in my book highly unethical. There is a severe lack of information in this area to educate business owners and help them make a wise decision." ------ common sense? "don't allow strangers to mess with your site uncontrolled"- sounds wise? another remark-- if you do a good job in the optimization process, you've helped the customer out in any case- even if his SE rankings don't improve dramatically. then again, knowing your chances and actually saying "well, i can't help you with your keyword range because [i.e.] on Google, that market is clogged" should be common business practice. too bad it isn't. regards, maxd