<Rant> I’ve wanted to write this post for years. A couple of times a month one of our clients or partners forwards us a laughable cold call sales pitch they’ve received from some bulk email scamming SEO-weasel who’s grubbing for business from the unaware. Though most serious search marketing agency-types provide an honest day’s work, as in any industry, a percentage of unscrupulous snake oil throwback-types give SEO a bad name.
Easy to Spot
These noisy jerks [author’s editorial opinion] blur the lines between paid and organic products with misleading jive, offer improper, unverifiable or, in some cases possibly fake claims to be AdWords Certified or a Yahoo Ambassador. Some offer “free” services, prey on fears and misconceptions, provide no unsubscribe in their aggressive solicitations, and point to 1998 looking “agency” websites that claim credentials by methods that break Google’s rules.
This Will Make Your Day
Below is an unsolicited “Promotional” email our attorney received this week. The AdWords Certification on the vendor’s site does not link to Google’s verification page and there is no listing for “SEMME,” “Customer Pal,” or “Search Marketing Me” in Yahoo’s Ambassador Directory (Deprecated). You will particularly enjoy the misspellings and grammatical errors amongst the content. Read it and weep…
–—-Original Message—–
From: todd@customerpal.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 1:07 AM
Hello,
There are hundreds of people searching for Lawyers and their Legal Services via Google, Yahoo, and many other search engines every month in your area.
Your website is simply being missed by over 99% of searches if you’re not at the top of the Search Engines. I can make those search engines find you at the top of the list on the first page every time. I can keep you there as long as you want.
The public will see your website and services first!!!!
There is no charge for this until I deliver. When you are finding yourself sitting at the top in first place I will bill you per month. This is a monthly arrangement with no contract and you may terminate at any time. ( you won’t want to)
You will be found on over twenty search engines including: yahoo, google, excite, altavista, lycos, infospace, web crawler, etc.
Call Todd toll free 1-866-998-3068
Talk to you soon-
PS If you would like to see for yourself how you’re ranked on the search engines, simply go to www.Google.com and do a search for “your geographic area” followed by the word “lawyer” or “injury lawyer”
(example: SanJose personal inury lawyer). Let me know where you come up. If you’re not on the first page….you need my service badly!! I’ll put you number one on the first page or you don’t pay!! I only take one lawyer from each town or city search.
Call me now!
Toll Free 1-866-998-3068
[Here’s the website you get if you follow the trail.]
</Rant>
