Unsolicited SEO Emails – Are They Legit?

Be wary of unsolicited emails you receive about SEO. Most are from scammers who will gladly take your money, yet not do any actual work. 

Clues to look for…

Here are some clues that an unsolicited marketing message is not legitimate:

1. There is no company name or website address listed on the email. 
2. The sender uses a Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or other free email address. Most legitimate companies will use a company-based email address. 
3. The email was sent from a contact form on your website.
4. The email states that there is a problem with your search rankings or that the amount of traffic to your site has decreased. There is NO WAY for another person or company to know how much traffic your site receives unless they are a verified user on your Google account.
5. The email mentions errors on your site that are easily verified as false. For example, they may say your site is not secure even though you have an SSL certificate. Or, they say you have bad links, technical issues, duplicate content, etc., without offering specific examples.
6. The email has glaring spelling and grammatical errors.

What Google says about unsolicited emails:

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue. Amazingly, we get these spam emails too: “Dear google.com, I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…” 

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35291?hl=en

We hope this helps explain these unsolicited emails. If you have additional questions about a specific email you have received, we’d be happy to provide more information. Contact us for more info.