This is one in a series of posts reviewing and looking at how some of the SEO companies which use bulk emails/spam with ‘we can help your terrible site’ type emails really can (and actually mostly can’t!) help your site.
Read some simple explanations of some of the SEO terms used on this post…
This email came from ‘Jasmine’ who was using an @gmail.com email but it actually had the name ‘jenny’ in it and now ‘jasmine’.
Here’s the initial email from Jasmine:
Hello Dear,
We will help grow your business on the 1st page of Google… (Get more traffic for website)
We have some special offers this season.Our Running Services
SEO ( Search Engine Optimization )
WEB Designing
Logo Designing
Digital Signature
Social Account Promotion
Please email us back if you are interested any of service . I can send you our Portfolio/Packages more info.
Thanks,
Jasmine
Just like my previous SEO spammer, this SEO spammer wasn’t spamming me about a specific site… (perhaps this is a new technique?). So I asked Jasmine what she thought about my big Christmas information site (www.whychristmas.com). During each December it gets millions and millions of visits and is #1 on the whole of Google for a huge number of Christmas searches – so any SEO advice about the site is always ‘interesting’…
Anyway, here’s the reply from Jasmine:
Hi ,
Hope you are doing well !
Thank you for your message and showing interest in our services “www.whychristmas.com”.
We have got your mail on our sales department, Myself Jasmine, we give you the best Service with affordable SEO and Digital marketing services providing company located in India. I would be very pleased to provide you more information about our services.
Our Offered Packages
We sincerely believe that our offer suits your requirements. Please do not hesitate to contact us for any further information or demonstration of product.
For 5 – 6 keyword our price list is 299$
For 10 Keyword our Price list is 390$
We are providing some of our samples works for you. You can select one of them for same look & feel. And if you have any reference website then you can share with us.
Here are our sample work:-
[There were six sites listed, none of which were very encouraging. There were missing images, great blank spaces on pages, an online store not using SSL and many ‘testimonial’ photos that were stock photos of people..!]
Simply click on the given link & you can select any design from it for same look & feel.
Looking for your prompt response.Best Regards,
Jasmine
Business Developer Manager
But Jasmine hadn’t said anything about my site or who she actually was, so I asked:
Hi Jasmine,
Thanks for your email. Please can you answer a couple of questions for me?
1. What company are you? I’d like to know who I might do business with! Do you have a website?
2. Why do you think my site (www.whychristmas.com) needs your SEO help? What’s wrong with it so it’s not getting good traffic?
Thanks,
James
And here was her reply… [The email was complete mess – with multiple different fonts, sizes and colours and with several sentences broken in midline for no reason!]
Hi James
I hope you are doing well.
And I am really happy that you asked question from us.
I can explain you everything you don’t need to say thanks
Because we are here to help you.
So these are your question—
What company are you? I’d like to know who I might do business with! Do you have a website?
The answer is – My Company name is DMSG and our company website is www.dmsg.in
Here is your next question-
Why do you think my site (www.whychristmas.com) needs your SEO help? What’s wrong with it so it’s not getting good traffic?
The answer is – There are many website out there on internet and still mostly people using old technique as you are doing currently.
We have checked that you are using very ordinary Keywords and you don’t have any website upgrade tool which can provide you
The best traffic and client. So if you gives us a chance to upgrade your site then I assure you that you will get better traffic and clients
On your website.
We are still waiting for your answer if you are satisfied with our proposal then we can sign a agreement with you.
Please reply us your answer
Best Regards,
Jasmine
So now we have a company name and site! But the reason why my site needed any help was less clear and full of jargon. So I asked for some clarification:
Hi Jamine,
Please can you explain what you mean by “website upgrade tool”? I’m not sure what you mean by that!
Also why do you think the keywords on the site are “very ordinary”? Again what do you mean by that – how are they ‘ordinary’ and how can they be made not ordinary?
I’m sorry for the questions, but I’d like some clarity on these points.
Thanks,
James
And here’s her reply; it’s a bit clearer, but not much! [Again there was a mix of fonts, colours, sizes and broken lines…]
Hi James
I can explain you about Keywords but I can’t tell you nothing about our tool.
Because it’s against our company policy and no one going to tell you about their tool.
I hope you can understand my concern.
The Keywords which you are using they have very high tuff competition and you don’t have any
Advance tool. That’s the meaning by ordinary keywords.
If you want to run your same keywords then we can more visible your website by our advance technique and tool.
Or if you want that we suggest you some new Keywords with our SEO service then we can do this too.
Choice is your James we just need to sign the agreement with you.
If I have solve your query then we can get your answer please.
Have a good day
Their Report & Recommendations
So let’s look, if we can make it out, what Jasmine/DMSG is saying about my site…
There are many website out there on internet and still mostly people using old technique as you are doing currently.
Right, so I think Jasmine/DMSG are saying my site is using ‘old coding’ or ‘old technology’. Only, it isn’t! It uses HTML5 for the code and Flexbox for the layout – both of which are current good/best practice! The site also has full ‘open graph’ tags in place for social sharing (which is more than their site does as we’ll see more about below…). So this is very confusing and very WRONG!
We have checked that you are using very ordinary Keywords and you don’t have any website upgrade tool which can provide you the best traffic and client. / The Keywords which you are using they have very high tuff competition and you don’t have any advance tool. That’s the meaning by ordinary keywords.
Again, this is confusing. I’m still not sure what ‘ordinary’ keywords are. The keywords used on the site are relevant for the site’s content! And yes, around ‘Christmas’ it does have ‘tough’ competition. However, my site is #1 on Google for a huge number of Christmas searches, for many of which they’re out of billions of results (It’s even on page 1 of Google for ‘Christmas’)! They also claim to have some sort of ‘advanced tool’. I’m guessing they just mean ‘normal’ keyword research but are trying to make it sound more ‘technical’. Keyword research is important in SEO; but again, my keywords are doing just fine! So this is also WRONG!
So out of the, rather confusing, reasons which DMSG/Digital Marketing Solution Group says my site needs their help, neither are true. AND their own has some very big (and real) ‘issues’…
Looking at Their Site
With SEO spammers, I also like to look at their sites, to see if they practice what they preach (I mean would you trust a plumber who had leaking and rusty pipes all over their own house?!); and also to compare their site with a site they say they can help…
Their site is: http://www.dmsg.in
Looking at the code on their site, it’s not very good; with some ‘basic’ things just not set-up correctly.
On HTML validation, their site has 3 errors and 2 warnings. That’s actually pretty good (especially for SEO spammers!) and they’re especially odd errors as manually looking at the code it looks like 2 of the errors aren’t what the HTML validator says they are. This leads me to suspect that there’s something very wrong with how their site and hosting are configured.
This is slightly confirmed in doing a ‘DNS’ check (looking at the techy bits behind a domain) where there are several DNS errors, including having no ‘MX’ records (which control the email side of domains). This could also explain why ‘Jasmine’ has only emailed me via a Gmail account and not a ‘proper’ domain account – because they don’t have any emails set up!? (fyi, my site has no issues or warnings.)
On Google Pagespeed their site gets:
Desktop: 91/100 (That’s actually very good… and the best I’ve seen from an SEO spammer)
Mobile: 68/100 (That’s pretty good)
My site gets:
Desktop: 100/100
Mobile: 99/100 – so both better using Google’s own speed testing tool!
Using the ‘WAVE’ Accessibility Testing Tool, my site has a clean bill of health – their site has 13 accessibility errors and 11 alerts. (Again these are mostly simple/basic things just not done properly. They don’t seem to know what ‘alts’ on images are…)
This is a very new site & company. The domain was only registered back in October 2019 (under 5 months at the time of typing).
There’s no SSL/HTTPS used on their site. For a site that’s less than six months old, there is really NO EXCUSE for not using SSL/HTTPS – it’s a basic ‘must have’ now on any new site.
There’s also no privacy policy on their site. Again, with the likes of GDPR and CCPA, there is NO EXCUSE not to have a full privacy policy in place.
The main logo is an ’empty’ link (meaning clicking on it doesn’t do anything, just like the privacy link) and it’s also got no alt text on the logo image – both of those are pretty basic things to do.
For an SEO company, they also don’t seem to know the basics of SEO either. The meta title of the site is “DMSG | Home”, that’s next to useless. There’s also NO meta description tag, NO ‘open graph’ tags and NO <h1> tag on their home page – those are all SEO basics!
Many of the images on the home page are ‘squished’ very badly.
The ‘Portfolio’ page isn’t actually a portfolio, it’s their price list… It’s like they’ve got a basic site template but don’t know how to change/add things on it!
The ‘Blog’ is just some ‘holding/example’ pages from a site template; again they don’t know how to change the basics of a site template – why should they be able to help my or your site?!
But there’s something rather more dodgy going on… With Gmail accounts, you can add a profile image and you can sometimes see that on emails that come through on Gmail accounts.
With Jasmine’s email, the photo is on a young woman. But doing a reverse image search, that photo actually belongs to a person called ‘Cathy’ who really works for a solar energy company in Texas and not for an SEO company in India! (Sadly her photo is also used on a ‘get rich scheme’ site for dodgy stocks and shares where her name is Mavis…).
This might also explain why the email also has ‘jenny’ it in – because they’re lying. Jasmine probably doesn’t exist and is a spammy front to trick people.
The subject of their spam was “Weekend SEO & WEB Offer” only it was sent on a Tuesday, so they don’t even seem to know when the weekend is!
And the opening line of the initial email was “We will help grow your business on the 1st page of Google…”
But… Google Say:
Beware of SEO companies that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google.
from Google’s “Do you need an SEO?”
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Conclusion
So, DMSG/Digital Marketing Solution Group are yet another SEO spammer hiding behind a generic email account to try and get business – and they’ve stolen someone’s photo to do it – that’s identity theft.
They also have so many ‘basics’ wrong or not ‘done right’ that it does make you seriously question their competence. I know they’re a young site and company, but that’s no excuse for not having things like SSL and a privacy policy…
They also seem to be using vague techy jargon to get business, rather than actually explaining anything. On their site they say “We are a Digitalized based Company” – that doesn’t mean anything!!!
So I certainly won’t be using their services!
But the choice, as ever, is yours.