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 the email came in from an Allan (I’m pretty sure that’s not his real name) who was using an @gmail.com email address with their name a bunch of numbers in (you know the kind of professional email address that all businesses use… NOT).
The subject of the spam was “Re: whyeaster.com: Simple to-follow steps to improve your site!!” and went:
Hello whyeaster.com,
Hope you are doing well.
I was looking for Keywords and found your website on page 3-4 of Google. If you were on page #1, you’d get so many prospects/new clients every day. Most of your targeted keywords on page #3-5. You’re so close! Do you mind if I sent a SEO Packages and Price list of your site to see why you’re not on page #1?
I can send the past work details in a couple hours. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I have more than 10 years of experience in digital marketing.
Can I send it over?
Look forward to your reply.
Kind Regards
Allan [Name removed for privacy even though I’m sure it’s not real]! Business Development Manager
Note: – Our next conversation will be on my corporate Email ID. If this is something you are interested in, please respond to this email. If this is not your interest, don’t worry, we will not email you again.
I sent a very simple reply:
What company are you?
That got me the below reply, that came in on “Allan’s” Gmail account, so not their ‘corporate Email ID’ like they said it would! And why would a company use a Gmail account to sent out business inquires in the first place? Oh yeah, because they’re spammers.
Anyway, their reply went:
Hi James,
Thanks for your email.
According to your queries, please find our company profile details below:
Company Profile
I represent Godigital promotion, one of the leading digital marketing companies serving many esteemed clients for website promotion, designing and development service. We have our representatives in the USA, UK and India to operate 24×7. To know more about us, please visit this link: www.godigitalpromotion.comMajor Goal of our Campaign:
Improving websites’ online visibility
Ranking website in FIRST PAGE of all the major search engines
Driving good visitors to the site by increasing inquiries
Create Branding/ popularity on social media
Generating calls
Reporting and Work evaluation:- To track the work process we will be sending you report of our activities every 15 days.With help of our experts, you will get a complete care of the website. From technical issue fixing to promotion, everything will be taken care of to give you the desired business and you will be getting customers from different areas. We can also advertise your website on different paid sites to get you more targeted visitors which will ultimately increase your customers and business.
Please go through the details and feel free to share if you come up with any further queries.
Looking forward to your response.
Thanks & Regards
Allan
Well, I did have some questions! As Allen mentioned, in his initial spam, that he’d been looking mu keywords, I thought I’d ask just what ones! And also what’s wrong with my site?!
Hi,
That’s interesting. What keywords were you using?
What do to you think is wrong with my site?
Thanks.
Over a week later I’d had no reply, so I asked again…
Hi,
Did you get my email? Can you answer my questions?
It’s been over another week now and still no reply. It seems that Go Digital Promotion don’t like to answer even the most basic of questions.
However, that’s not going to stop me ‘reviewing’ their site. After all, they told me who they are!
I’ll post an update if I ever do get a reply (I doubt one will ever arrive).
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 https://www.godigitalpromotion.com/
For HTML Validation, my Easter site has no errors. Their site has 65 errors and 19 warnings. That’s not a good start.
Using the ‘WAVE’ Accessibility Testing Tool, their site has 19 errors and 25 contrast errors – again, not good. My Easter site has no errors of either kind!
Using the Google Lighthouse speed test tool their site gets:
Performance: 40
Accessibility: 74
Best Practices: 83
SEO: 77
My site gets:
Performance: 100
Accessibility: 100
Best Practices: 92
SEO: 100
There’s no Heading 1 tag on their home page. This is one of the most important items for SEO, yet it’s amazing how many SEO companies don’t have one!
Another really important thing is the meta description tag – and guess what, Go Digital Promotion don’t have one of those either. Their meta home page title (another important thing) is ‘Home – Go Digital Promotion’ – again, not exactly great.
There’s no privacy policy on the site. I mean, why would you want to abide by multiple international laws in having one!?
On the home page, it promises ‘Clean Coading’ (yes, with that spelling) but as we’ve seen from the HTML validator, their own site has very un-clean code…
They claim to be based in Morristown, NJ and there’s an address on their site. However, until a few months ago, the address they give was the location of a branch of Capital One Bank! (The number on the site is also an NJ one.)
Looking on the ‘Wayback Machine’ (which archives sites over the years), from 2018 to 2021, their site had an address in San Diego on it. The location was in a strip mall. Looking on Google Street view, I can’t see a business with their company name in the businesses there, when it was photographed in 2020. (The phone number then was for New York state!)
The change to New Jersey happened when they revamped their site in January 2021 by the looks of it.
Now it could be that they’ve moved into the building, or they’re lying about where they’re located…
Funnily enough, on the Web Design services page it says “Go digital promotion is one of the first India-based companies…” And their SEO and SMO services pages both talk about India (but not the USA…)
So, erm, yeah.
The first sentence on their Content Writing page is “Content Writing has invited admiration since centuries.” I’m going to say that content writing like that hasn’t been admired much!
In the site’s header and footer there are social media links. However, only two of the four work. The Facebook and Twitter links work, but the Instagram and LinkedIn ones don’t go anywhere.
But a Google shows they do have a LinkedIn account. And on that, guess where it says they’re located – in Bangalore!
You can also see the profiles of some staff at Go Digital Promotion on the LinkedIn profile. But I don’t think some of them are real! Most have no other details apart from working at Go Digital Promotion – a red flag. Two have no profile picture and say they’re in Atlanta – hmmmm. Another one, also with no additional info, says they’re based in Bangalore – but their profile picture is the Indian actress Hansika Motwani. (I’m pretty sure she doesn’t need to work for a spammy SEO company.) The only one I think is real is some someone who actually has some more information – and that says they’re in Bhubaneswar – which is about 1000km from Bangalore and is the home to many an SEO spammer! So all very odd…
Allan said in an email that “We have our representatives in the USA, UK and India to operate 24×7”. I frankly don’t believe this! I’m pretty sure that they are only located in India and are yet another SEO company trying to make themselves look bigger by being less than truthful about their location.
On the Go Digital Promotion about page, they claim that “everything that we do is 100% ethical”. However, I don’t think that any of:
- spamming from random Gmail accounts
- making spurious claims about the site they spamming about
- claiming to be able to get you on the first page of Google (when Google says not to trust companies which make claims like that)
- having seemingly fake employees on their LinkedIn profile
- and lying where they’re based
is exactly ethical…
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!
Conclusion
Go Digital Promotion are SEO spammers.
They make great claims but either don’t bother to or cannot answer the most basic of questions.
Their own site is full of basic HTML, SEO and accessibility errors.
They claim to be ethical but when you dig a little deeper, they seem to be anything but.
If Go Digital Promotion say your site needs their help, the delete button is probably a much better option.
But, as ever, the choice is yours…