Come on, don’t deny it. We all want it, right? Don’t be shy, you can tell me. I know you want to get your website to the Top of Google its no good denying it!. Well, it really can be easier than you think. But let me tell you ‘How Not To Get To The Top Of Google’.

You must get them. Everbody gets them. You know, those emails. The ones that say something like:

Hi,
Hope you are well. I was surfing through your website “www.yoursite.com” and after saw your website is not on top rankings for most of your keywords pertaining to your domain so I was wondering if you would be interested in getting Search engine optimization done for your website.

(that is part of and actual email sent to one of my clients today)

So, my client – a good, trustworthy, loyal client, forwarded the whole email onto me. He thought I’d be interested in it. He was right, I was. But not because some douch-bag is trying to steal my client. Our clients are very loyal. No, I was interested because yet again, it shows that scammers operate 24/7 and look for ‘easy prey’ on the internet.

The sad thing? My client will not be the only recipient of such a message today and sadly, some of those recipients will respond to it thinking it is the ‘holy grail’ and possibly end up losing hundreds, even thousands of their hard earned cash.

How do I know its a scam? A couple of ways:

1. Read the the excerpt again. That ‘broken’ English and ‘z’ in optimisation shows it did not come from UK shores as its been disguised to look like

2. I immediately ran a Google Search for the primary key phrase on my clients site & wadda ya know…. they were top of Google

3. The sender of the message – robot or person – have not actually been to your site and checked if you are in Google at all, never mind top of Google.

So, quite simply, this scammer is Phishing.

‘Fishing’ for people who ‘don’t know any better’ -

‘Fishing’ for desperate people who think that being on top of Google is the goal -

‘Fishing’ for people who will part with money!

I get these kind of messages every week sent to me directly yet we have been top of Google since September 2006 – and not once dropped despite all the Google shake-ups Algorithms they come out with. How? Thats for another post

But in the meantime, please, if you get such emails out of the blue, stick it in the trash.