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 time it started a bit differently with the spammer saying that WordPress could work really well for my business site. Indeed it could, that why I ALREADY USE IT! (Which of course they’ve not actually bothered to check before they spammed me!)
This email came from a Rohan who was using a rather random looking Gmail email, although a subsequent reply came from a VJ using an @kssitservices.com email.
Greetings of the day!!!
Are you looking for a Content Management System (CMS) that is powerful yet easy to use?
Then WordPress might be the right choice for you.
We can develop a unique WordPress website according to your individual needs that will allow you to easily manage your pages, content, photo galleries, web catalogues etc.
We are offering Combo Deal to create a WordPress responsive website.
Contact us today for more details and costing.
Kind Regards
Rohan
Online Consultant
So I replied to Rohan asking him to take a look at my site (you know, the one which already uses WordPress…) and I got the below reply from VJ:
Hello James,
Thanks for showing interest in our services. I would like to introduce myself.
My name is VJ and I take care of Business Development in KSS IT Pvt. Ltd. In order to know more about us please visit our website http://www.kssitservices.com , We are an Indian based certified offshore leading on-line marketing company and expert in Internet domain as link building, SEO, SMO with a team of dedicated 85 professionals with Web Design, Web Development and Mobile Application Development firm with over 7 years of experience and offer Website Design, Web Development and Mobile Application Development Services at affordable packages
Your website is the first impression of your business. Only a well designed and functional website can convey your business to prospective customers. If your website looks out-dated and static, you won’t be a challenge for your competitors. We have a separate creative team which includes Designers and Illustrators for designing the layouts as per your tastes and preferences. We thrive on the idea that design makes a difference
Also you can contact me on my Whatsapp No. +91-8586023141 or add me on my Skype id – vijendra.opusys for real time discussion.
We have reviewed your current website https://seospam.xyz/ this is developed on wordpress framework and like catalogue design and there is lots of error in exiting website like …
Design Structure
All contents is messup
There should be separate page for services, projects and testimonials etc
Information on header about
Social media Widget integration
Graphic Quality (Images not optimized)
There would be slider image or video on banner section
Font color and style not as par standard
Tab sections is not develop on proper way
No footer information – This is standard requirement for all the website
Not SEO friendly and Google friendly
Design not as per current industry standard
URL structure not good
Not 100% Responsive for all device
We would like to redesign your website from scratch in WordPress framework. You will be having a control panel by which you can manage ( Add/ DEL/ Modify) of your website also if you have a team then you can divide your work into the team through sub-admin add on. Master Admin will having their own account/control panel by which they can check and upload their services, queries for services any complaints etc…
Do let me know in case I can facilitate you with any additional information from my end.
Look forward to hearing from you soon.
Their Report & Recommendations
So, now they recognise that my site DOES use WordPress – hurrah! But oh dear, they don’t seem to like it much. Let’s look at all the errors which KSS IT say I have on my site…
Design Structure – I’m not actually sure what this means! Design is a subjective matter of taste and I’m more than happy with the design of my site. It’s clean and simple to use. Also the site’s code ‘structure’ is done the way things should be. So I’ll say this is MEANINGLESS.
All contents is messup – No. No it isn’t! (Unlike those words from VJ and frankly a lot of the contents on their site!). My site has lots of great content; including many posts taking apart spammy emails from SEO companies! So this is WRONG.
There should be separate page for services, projects and testimonials etc – Hmmm, ok, they *might* have a point here. However, I’ve deliberately kept my site simple. I blog about some of the sites I build (so those would be projects) and I’m happy to supply testimonials upon request (but unlike them I don’t make them up – see more below!). So we’ll call this POSSIBLE.
Information on header about – Again I don’t know what this means! The site’s header has got the logo and site navigation. So I’m going to say this is MEANINGLESS.
Social media Widget integration – Adding a social media widget into a site *can* be a good thing. However, it can also make your site load more slowly and add extra privacy concerns (which is why I’ve chosen not to have one) and THERE IS NO SEO BENEFIT from having one. So this is WRONG.
Graphic Quality (Images not optimized) – This is simply WRONG. All the images on the site are VERY optimised (which again is more than on their site!).
There would be slider image or video on banner section – Having a Slider (also sometimes called a Carousel) or a video on your site WILL NOT magically help your SEO. In fact it can hurt SEO and site usability as they can make the page longer to load! And it’s been shown, many times in user testing, that sliders/carousels ARE NOT effective in the vast majority of cases. For more see: http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/ (fyi, the answer is no.) So this is WRONG.
Font color and style not as par standard – Another puzzling one! The main font used on this site is ‘the standard’ one for whatever device you’re viewing it on (doing this helps the site load faster!). The heading/feature font is a little different. One of my design heroes is Charles Rennie Mackintosh. My company’s logo is inspired by Mackintosh’s design and it’s been the one I’ve had since I started design things 20 years ago. The heading/feature font is also inspired by one that Mackintosh designed. So they are not ‘par standard’ (that’s not a phrase, I think they mean ‘per standard’) they have been DESIGNED. So this is WRONG.
Tab sections is not develop on proper way – Erm, I’m not sure words actually go together like that… I’m guessing they mean the site’s navigation. There are menu items. They do their job. This is WRONG.
No footer information – This is standard requirement for all the website – Another simply WRONG one. There’s a footer with my contact details on every page & post on the site – what more do you want?!
Not SEO friendly and Google friendly – Yet again just WRONG. The site is VERY SEO and Google friendly! (And much more so than their site, as we’ll see below!)
Design not as per current industry standard – There is no ‘industry standard’ for design. So that makes this WRONG from the outset! Again, design is a subjective matter, but I’d say my site is ‘well designed’!
URL structure not good – Guess what? This is WRONG. The URL structure is just fine.
Not 100% Responsive for all device – WRONG WRONG WRONG. My site is 100% responsive!
So out of their 14 ‘errors’, 11 are WRONG, 2 are MEANINGLESS and 1 *might* have some merit but I’m already basically doing it!
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.kssitservices.com
For HTML Validation, their site has 43 errors & 35 warnings. That’s not good. My site has none! (This isn’t a good start…)
On Google Pagespeed their site gets:
Desktop: 51/100 (That’s not very good)
Mobile: 19/100 (That’s pretty TERRIBLE!!!)
My site gets 99/97 on both Desktop and Mobile – so both a lot better…
Using the ‘WAVE’ Accessibility Testing Tool, my site has no errors. Their site has 48 coding errors and 61 low contrast errors.
Looking at the content and code of their site, they’re not using SSL/HTTPS (which is a basic these days). They have NO <h1> tags on the home page – this is VERY important for SEO and an SEO basic… The site’s copyright year still says 2016 (oh dear).
They don’t have a Privacy policy (there is a page but it contains one paragraph of ‘filler’ latin text – the same are their ‘Terms and Conditions’ and ‘Tech Support’ pages!
They’ve got social links in the header and footer of the site. However, two of the links don’t go anywhere – including one for Google+ (which has been closed for over a year…) this makes me wonder if they actually know to to edit a basic site theme?!
There’s Google analytics code in the site, but it still contains the domain belonging to the design company they got their theme from! (So don’t they know how to do basic things like that either then…?!)
They claim the business has ‘over 7 years of Experience’ but the domain was registered in March 2015 – so less than 5 years ago. Perhaps they mean that between their ‘team of dedicated 85 professionals’ there is a total of 7 years experience?! If so, that would work out at an average of less than a month’s experience per person…! (Oh and I’ve got nearly 20 years of web design experience all on my own!)
There’s some blog posts on their site although the ‘newest’ is from February 2017. However, it looks like many of those have been randomly copied and pasted of other dodgy looking SEO sites! (And pretty much all of them are written in very odd English…)
Several of the posts also seem to have come from another SEO site/company ‘Web Sun Lite’ (although their site isn’t working at the moment); using the web ‘wayback machine’, the ‘Web Sun Lite’ site looked VERY like the KSS IT one (in fact I’m pretty sure they’re using the same theme!). Also the two domains were registered within 6 weeks of each other, both in India, both using GoDaddy for their domains registration and hosting. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…
On their About page, there’s a photo of a very fancy looking office block with their logo (rather obviously) photo shopped on it. A reverse image search shows that it’s a newly built office block in Delhi (which can easily be found on Google Maps).
However, if you put the address that KSS IT list on their site into Google Maps, it too is in Dehli, but it certainly isn’t that office block – it’s about 3km away! (Oops Naughty KSS IT…) Also, rather laughably, there’s a Google Map on their contact page (although of course it’s not set-up correctly, because why would it be?!) but it shows their address to be where they really are – not in the fancy office block!
They have a Testimonials page. The first testimonial is a quote from the General Manager of a Advertising Agency in Australia. However, a quick Google of the ‘testimonial’ shows that it was actually about (and is on) the site of a leading Marketing Management Consultancy.
As that was rather suspicious, I thought I’d also randomly check the last testimonial on the page. A Google of it found the EXACT same quote/testimonial (it’s 36 words long, so not a short phrase…) on at least SEVEN other ‘SEO’ companies (all based in India and some who looking amazingly dodgy) and also left as a review on yet another Indian SEO company. So I don’t know who’s been copying who, but it really doesn’t inspire confidence in KSS IT does it!?
On their ‘Projects’ page there are some sites and three (very generic looking) logos. I did reverse image searches on the logos…
One is a free logo available on a variety of free stock photo sites; another came out of a logo competition by a ‘get graphic design work here’ company/site; and the last was from a company that makes logos for other companies.
The reverse image search also turned up that the last logo was also on the ‘Web Sun Lite’ site! (More evidence that they’re really run by the same people?!)
Conclusion
So it seems that KSS IT have lied about their location, lied about (some?) their testimonials and lied about (some? of) their actual work… (As well as being less than honest about the errors on my site!)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I have no issues with Indian based web companies; but I do have issues with any company that flat out lies!
KSS IT are also yet another SEO company relying on spamming people (from behind random Gmail accounts) to get business.
I wouldn’t trust KSS IT to make me cup of tea, let along a website, but as ever, the choice is yours!