Is it possible that Google called our previous SEO company and asked them to remove their tags?
(What also perplexes me is they have no access to the site so I don't know what "tags" they could be referencing?)
That there tells me your old SEO company wants to make whatever extra dollar they can from you.
The company that we were paying to do our SEO just called and said they were contacted by google and told to remove their tags from all of our stuff.
If by "their tags" you are referring to decorations that specifically apply to the company such as the SEO company logo, then why not? delete those things and make both of you happy. If however, you mean keywords, then the company is stepping over-bounds, because you paid for them to put the keywords in your site. If they MUST remove the keywords to make your site rank not as high, then the least you deserve is a FULL REFUND.
Also, Google isn't a personal website tag-manager service, and even if it was, the point is, you hired an SEO consultant to improve your website, you didn't transfer ownership of the site to the SEO consultant. After all, you did pay your dues, and received service as requested back in the day. right?
I agree 100% with @mike's answer. However to answer this question in short: Not true, Google will never call an SEO company nor a website owner to ask them to remove their website tags.
Side note: I am glad for your client that they have left that doggy SEO company
This story stinks for several reasons.
- Google does not notify websites because their page-rank is in danger. When they suspect a website does fraudulent SEO, they just penalize their page rank.
- Supposed they would see a reason to notify websites before they penalize them, they would notify the website contact directly and not take the detour over their SEO consultant.
- Supposed they would have a reason to go over the SEO consultant, how would they even know who did the SEO consulting for your website?
- Supposed they would know who the SEO consultant is, what obligation would the consultant have to forward that message to a client they are no longer working for?