Getting repeated spam emails about SEO on your website?
” We can help you fix these issues and get your website ranked on the 1st page of Google.”
“I came across your impressive website and noticed it deserves better visibility on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.”
“Your website has technical errors”
“I noticed that your website is not ranking as well as it could be for certain keywords that I assume you’re targeting.”
…sound familiar? Probably. I get these emails every day, and there’s no way to filter them out without losing genuine emails.
So is it genuine? Can they really help me?
Short answer is no. They have not looked through your website to find issues they can legitimately help with. These are scattershot emails they send to thousands of people, often using a throwaway Gmail address (I personally don’t trust any company that communicates via Gmail, and definitely not a company involved in tech).
OK, so can you stop those emails coming to me?
Unfortunately not – I can block an email address, but there are literally millions of these accounts and spammers rarely use the same email for long, so you’d spend time almost daily adding them to a blacklist and it won’t stop the flow. I can target a word in the email to send the message to junk, but can you be sure that if I blacklist all emails that mention ‘Google’ or ‘Search’ or any of the other common words in their emails, that will also not filter out a potential business lead?
But they promise to get me on Page #1 of Google!!
No one can assure a particular ranking on Google, especially the first position. Google’s search results frequently change due to various factors. SEO (search engine optimisation) takes time and effort – there is no ‘quick fix’ or ‘secret method’.
But surely it’s in your interest to tell me to avoid them – are you scared of the competition Patrick?
It’s a good question, so I would recommend comparison shopping, by checking their website or reading their online reviews. The problem there is that 99% of the time you won’t even be able to see what company they represent as they have no email signature that shows a website address, and they’re sending via Gmail. So you can’t look them up first. OK, so try something more simple – is the name they signed off with the same as the address they’re sending from? For example, ‘Kind regards, David Smith’ but when you look at the email address it says Jane Taylor. Again, 90% of the time it isn’t the same name – and another red flag goes up.
Well what’s the harm in emailing them back to see what they’re offering?
Once they feel they have a chance, they are aggressively persistent – more emails, calls, messages. And still you won’t be able to see what company they represent and they’ll give you no guarantees. They’ll ask for money upfront, then ask for access to your website. You’ve also confirmed that your email address is real and monitored by a human, so expect a lot more spam in the future.
In short, if you didn’t initiate contact by signing up to something, then don’t trust it. Genuine companies that offer SEO support very rarely send unsolicited email, and if they do they have their website details clearly shown in their email signature and they use a domain based email address, not a Gmail.