17 Nov 2009 chalst   » (Master)

Recentspam
Some SEOer is busy, creating accounts rachelmorgen, michaelsm, akeldee, and Ukcarbroker, in the space of a few minutes.

A pro tip for businesses seeking to improve their website's ranking on Google: promoting a website using spam is easily seen using Google searches, and says a lot about the integrity of your business practices. Do you really want to buy a car from UK CarBroker (tel: (UK) 0845 460 6605)? Or a package holiday from Colorful Rajasthan Tours (tel: +91- 7462-222251)? Or book that once-in- a- lifetime honeymoon in Kerala with Rover Holidays (+91 - 9995446909 / 9891001470)? Are you confident of the quality of the products you'd get from Bathroom Accessories (Tel: 1-800-266-1732)?

Because they all use the same spammer SEO outfit...

Postscript (Tuesday 17th) — In the time it took me to write that, spam account hairworks appeared, pushing lace wigs on behalf of Hair Works International (TM), tel: 1-800-311-5514. And also visaviscosmetics on behalf of Vis-à-Vis Cosmetics, who sell "affordable prestige formulas that marry high quality performance with fashion forward color trends for today\'s [sic] modern women" online, and can be contacted by tel. +1 -914.422.3999 / 877.433.6891.

It is surprising that so many sites go to such efforts to get good website design, with lots of care made what the site says about the business to potential customers, and then use spammer SEOs to promote that website. Is it cluelessness or dodgy business practice?

Postscript #2 (Tuesday 17th)redi observes that not all SEO-like accounts need be made by spammers, in particular Adecco NZ claimed to have been targeted by a scammer who posed as an Adecco New Zealand employee on international job forums and [was] luring job seekers in to a money forwarding scheme. Indeed, it is good not to take spam accounts at face value, however in this case, at least some of the links were to a business website that had existed for several months. Phishing scam doesn't look likely to me.

Postscript #3 (Wednesday 18th)ncm is concerned that spammer SEOs might have use for deleted accounts with hyperlinks to them. I'm doubtful, but I've changed the anchors to bolds.

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