SEO scammers

You're totally right in wanting to notify Google/Norton/Whomever that these guys are there, but the problem is a whac-a-mole game at this point. Even if those companies cared, they'd take them down and then twelve seconds later, someone else would show up. The only solution in my opinion is awareness!!! Raising awareness, so that no matter what silliness pops up, consumers know to ignore it. Jim, you're doing a great job of raising awareness, and that's what counts.

Marc-Anthony Arena

Oh no! I wish I knew this before - I am also bombarded with calls and emails post credit card application at Star Bazzar Andheri India- I have clicked many times on "i want to unsubscribe" All companies know I want credit card, it is difficult to know if it is real bank or scammer calling... The specific SBI card at star Bazzar which gives cash back - ever since - messages, phone, and emails have littered my inbox. And sad part is - they know all about me, scammers also call and they know my personal details... I feel so sick, no one wants to fight them. The card sales person, I have seen accepting documents on his personal Whatsapp to get customers on boarded on credit card... Police is no help. I have lost money and also peace due to these calls.

It's not a good thing them doing this, but I kinda want to know what they know about the Google search algorithm that literally nobody knows about. Unless they're just paying to have it put on top.

I made donations to some causes I thought worthy and were verified as ethical by Charity Navigator but apparently my email address was sold to some less than ethical groups and now I'm bombarded with emails claiming I have only hours to claim my prize from a contest I never entered. A great many of the emails warn me that my Norton/McAfee/Microsoft/you name it, virus protection is expiring and I need to call immediately. I don't use any of those anti-virus security measures. I use a service that is very effective and never, ever calls me. I know the rest are more than likely scams and even though I never respond the emails continue to fill my in box. Something I was told quite some time ago is that I should never check a box on an email that indicates your wish to not receive any more of those nuisance messages. Doing that simply confirms to the sender that they have contacted a live account belonging to a living, breathing, human being, which then highlights your name on scam and junk email address lists which will result in attracting even more emails from scammers. Scammers don't want to waste time dealing with no longer active accounts so checking the 'Don't send me any more emails' guarantees you will get more emails. Keep it up, Jim, I love to see you deliver poetic karma to miscreants and ne'er-do-wells.

Yeah I tried to call Cannon for help with my printer and I got one of these. I was in the middle of buying a $265 package when my husband said “it’s a scam, just hang up.” Had he not, I would’ve gone through with it! I’m just too darn trusting of people! Not everyone has a good heart or good morals. It’s sad really. Thanks for this, Jim!!

I got infected with that with an annoying pop up saying my norton had run out, or was going to soon.

andy b

Just thought I'd share my insight here - I'm an SEO professional and digital marketer. I see this across many industries. Scam organisations will purchase hundreds of domains and set up very basic WordPress websites detailing their services. The CTA is always to call a given number. Sometimes scammers get brazen and try to set up ecommerce sites, and I see this especially in the prescription medication field. They purchase hundreds of thousands of spam backlinks, do social media bookmarking under fake accounts, optimise these pages for long-tail keywords and hope that their sites start to rank within Google after a month or so. Becuase they register hundreds of these sites and do the same things with each of them, chances are at least one or two will begin to rank organically for some of those keywords. They have all the technical stuff in place - XML sitemap, structured markup, anything they can do to try and convince Google that they're a legitimate site. Usually, within a few months, Google will realise it's a fake site, either because they're refining their algorithm to be more discerning when it comes to sites showing expertise, authoritativeness and trust, or because a Google quality rater looks at the site and flags it as an illegal site. Unfortunately for these guys it's then just rinse and repeat. Google is slowly getting better at weeding these sites out, but it's a slow process and will be many years before Google is able to algorithmically and accurately determine a fake site from a real one at first sight.

Maybe I'm too close to this, but my impression is that it's steadily increasing. When there is no action taken within India, there is nothing to lose and everything to gain if you're a scammer.

Jim Browning

Do you know if this problem is getting more serious by the day, or is this problem just starting?

I'm not sure that Google can do much... They're basically exploiting an algorithm which anyone can do. However, they are certainly in breach of Norton's copyright, so I've reported the scam to them. Of course, I see plenty of fake Dell, McAfee, Microsoft etc sites there too. However, I believe I've given Norton enough information to allow their lawyers to get busy. Let's hope so anyway.

Jim Browning

I can provide many many examples of SEO spam. They come via insecure domain registrar practices (I believe) - I would get a influx of them, between a few minutes & many months after registering a new domain. I’d love to be able to help smash their racket.

Chris Phillips

Can confirm this. I have witnessed similar thing with HP printer support.