SPAM and search engine optimisation
As a webmaster I often get requests(!) spammed to me by alleged Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) companies who want to indulge in link exchange in order to raise the profile of their target website.
When they send one to one of my business email addresses I see that as fair game. But I just had one to my personal, family website, and it was emailed to my personal, individual subscriber email address. That's unlawful.
It came, not from the company whose site the guy is trying to boost, but from peteronline22@googlemail.com, and it contains the usual rubbish sent by someone with a poor concept of how SEO really works. I've removed the identifying stuff because the company may have retained the guy, but they really ought to look very carefully at his work:
Hi there,My name is Peter and I am working on behalf of [these people] to acquire some good quality partners for the site that are related to holidays. I found your site karoo.net [he even got the site technically wrong, if he did but know!] while searching in Google and wondered if you would like to exchange a link with us?The site, [site name] gets over 500 unique visitors a day. If you wish to go ahead copy and paste the code below onto your site and let me know where it is. I will then place your link to my site ASAP.Here is the code:[these people] provide luxury [html code removed] Sri Lanka holidays[html code removed] and holidays to other destinations around the globe.
Or alternatively, you can use:URL: [html code removed]Link text: Sri Lanka holidaysDescription: [These people] provide luxury holidays around the world including Dubai and Sri Lanka.Thanks for your timePeter
Oh dear. For a start, why do I want to exchange links at all? I know reciprocal links penalise a site. And mine is a private site, it's mine. I put adverts on it for fun, because I have an adsense account. It generates almost $0.15 per month sometimes!
So I called the company for whom he is SEOing. They were quite surprised that his approach could even lead to their having an eye run over their business by the Information Commissioner for breaking the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations (2003) and were rightly unamused at that aspect.
Oh, I googled the email address! He seems to have only just started using this email address to place linkspam, only three results today! Let's watch over time, shall we?
2 comments:
Good content.
Just wanted to add some points here that may be helpful for those looking out for professional SEO services. There are tons of SEO companies offering different SEO packages and solutions at highly competitive rates. However, when looking our for these services, its important to not only look at the affordability factor but also what is unique about their SEO service and what differentiates them from other companies.
While choosing an SEO company its equally important to analyze the SEO company's website in terms of their Rankings, Yahoo links, Google index, Alexa ranking and similar such factors which indicates the company's expertise in the field of SEO. So make sure you are doing enough research and smart work before investing your advertising spend.
Thanks for dropping by, Ann. Absolutely. See if they take their own medicine. While "Page Rank" per se is an academic ranking, the actual position in search engine results pages of the outfit one chooses is important.
Theirs is a fiercely contested market. And their eye must be on their ball first.
I don't really like Alexa. I've been able to skew the results there in the past just for fun! But all the other areas are good in my view. And, while Big G isn't the only game in town, I can't remember the last Yahoo search I issued!
But, before approaching any SEO company, the web content should be looked at hard. Get the content right and visitors follow. And simple optimisation after that works wonders. It's not a black art. It;s just a case of good content and a little common sense.
Post a Comment