Saturday, April 14, 2012

Search Engine Optimizer Spam

I found this in my inbox today:
Jen Rhee rheester88@gmail.com via mailingcomplex.com
7:47 PM (12 hours ago)
...
Hi Steve,

I came across your site while searching for blogs and posts about Mexican drug cartels. That said, I wanted to reach out to see if you'd like to view a graphic that my team and I created which illustrates the benefits of marijuana legalization. Would you be interested in taking a look?

I'd love to get your readers' feedback as well as yours!

Thanks,
Jen R.
"... gmail.com via mailingcomplex.com"? Hmmm...

This approach is a little classier than posting a vacuous comment containing a string of periods, each of which is a variant of a link to one or more websites, but no thanks.

Sneakiness is off-putting, Jen. Next time, try an honest appeal. Maybe something like, "Hi, I'm trying to boost the search engine rankings of a web site. In order that you receive some value from my intrusion, I've put a nice infographic there which, given the posts on your blog about marijuana legalization, I think you'll enjoy. Please check it out and, if you like it, feel free to link to the infographic."

You might also include a link directly to the infographic rather than, by omission, asking me to reply to you. Why would I want to do that?

Bye Jen.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I got one of these too! Mine was related to my research work. Gave me the willies and I began looking around. The similarity to the letter you quote here (except for the specifics) is nearly identical.

"Bye Jen."

Indeed!