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 a David who was using an @gmail.com email address with his name and the word ‘web’ in it.
I’ve normally covered SEO spam targeted at a particular site, but this time I replied to a ‘we can do all you SEO for you’ type one.
The subject of the spam was “White Label Digital Marketing” and went:
Hi,
I am from a Digital Marketing Agency and we offer 100% White Label outsourcing solutions to Digital agencies. Do you want 1st Page Listing on Google and Free website analysis report for you and your clients?
Marketing Services: (SEO | PPC | SMO | SMM) 100% white label outsourcing services.
Why partner with us?
1 – White label reports with 24×7 support on Skype and basecamp.
2 – We provide you a top-notch white label SEO outsourcing.
3 – Detailed reporting with Google Analytics, Search console, SEMRUSH, Moz, Ahrefs data in one place.
4 – We are technical SEO people and are geared towards performance only. We have a success score of 80% for our SEO campaigns.
5 – Dedicated team of 150+ professionals ready to jump into your project right away. • save up to 60% marketing as well as resource hiring cost.If you are interested then we can send you our Packages and Price-list. OR If you want to talk over a call, we can schedule a meeting with my Manager. She can give you a demo of our work and discuss your ideas.
Hoping for a positive response!!
Regards,
David [name removed for privacy although it’s probably fake]
Business Development Executive“Our business will only flourish via your success.”
So a standard “we can do the world for you and your business” type of spam. But of course it told you nothing about what company was actually doing the spamming (which breaches the USA’s CAN-SPAM law, along with you know, just being spam generally and sent without consent which breaks other laws around the world…)
So I just sent a very simple one-liner:
What company do you work for?
That got me a reply from a David but also copied in a Ronit on an @nucleoanalytics.com email account and went:
Hi James,
Thank you for getting back to me, I am looping in our Digital Marketing Strategist, Mr. Ronit. he is our lead in strategic partnership and business growth. he’ll get back to you and will be answering all your questions and sharing more information with you. “he’ll also discuss agency pricing with you.”
Regards,
David [name removed for privacy]
Business Development ExecutiveSo I’ll getting a follow up from “Mr Ronit” – that’s a male name but David’s first spam said the manager would be female. Oh well…
A few days later I heard nothing from Ronit, so I did a reply all:
Hi,
I look forward to a reply from Ronit.
That got a response from Ronit!
Hello James – Thank you for the response.
Good to hear from you and I am more than happy to share the details with you.
To share more details, we have been working in this industry for almost 7 years now and have helped various local or national businesses grow their presence online. We can not only promote your client’s business on Search engines like Google and Bing but can also help you grow your client’s existence on social media profiles like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
I am associated with Nucleo Analytics Pvt Ltd and in total I do have 8 plus years of experience in digital marketing. We do have a team size of 60 plus individuals and each one is well versed in their respective niche.
I would really appreciate it if you could share the details with me and a preferred time of communication as per your convenience so that we can connect and discuss further.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Regards
Ronit [name removed for privacy as this one is probably real!]
Digital Marketing Specialist
Over the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve been getting less and less patience with these spammers, so I went straight for the big guns:
Hi Ronit,
I’ve been a web designer and developer for 20 over years. I like to reply to SEO spammers to see what they say to get clients.
I have some questions for you.
Please can you tell me why you think it’s ok to spam people, from random Gmail accounts, to get business?
Are you happy breaching of multiple international laws?
Your initial email was IN BREACH OF ALL the pieces of anti-spam legislation listed below.
For the UK you are not allowed to sent marketing emails to an individual without their permission – you did this: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/electronic-and-telephone-marketing/electronic-mail-marketing/
For CASL in Canada, you need consent to send electronic marketing – which you did not have: https://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/00008.html (You also need other business identifiers in the emails, which your emails do not have.)
The Anti Spam Act in Australia has similar conditions for consent and identity, which your emails also met none of: https://www.acma.gov.au/avoid-sending-spam
In South Africa there is the Protection of Personal Information Act, which says you have to have consent to send people marketing emails, which you did not have: https://ispa.org.za/spam/
For the USA, you are breaking several of these guidelines for CAN-SPAM compliance: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
Please can you answer my questions.
Thanks.
It’s been well over a week now I’ve not heard back from Ronit or anyone at Nucleo Analytics… but that’s not going to stop me ‘reviewing’ their site!
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.nucleoanalytics.com/
For HTML Validation, their site has 1 errors and 48 warnings. That’s about the best I’ve ever seen from an SEO spammer. But as we’ll see below, that’s 100% down to the fact they’re using a VERY ‘off the shelf’ site and really nothing to do with them.
Using the ‘WAVE’ Accessibility Testing Tool, their site has 16 errors and 30 contrast errors – again, not too bad. And again, nothing actually really to do with them…
Using the Google Lighthouse speed test tool their site gets:
Performance: 36
Accessibility: 89
Best Practices: 83
SEO: 86
Out of those scores, only the ‘Performance’ is down to them, and the hosting, caching system they’re using (or not). So as a start, the one ‘score’ they control, it’s pretty not good.
BUT THAT’S JUST THE START!!!
I’ve complained in the past about some SEO spammers being lazy and Nucleo Analytics are right up there. Their site is a pretty much ‘out of the box’ version of a WordPress theme called ‘Engitech’ and their site uses pretty much ALL the demo/dummy with content that comes with it.
How do I know this? Well, because if you go to the About page, the opening line is “Engitech is the partner of choice for many of the world’s leading enterprises” and the ‘video showcase’ for their site opens the video demo for the theme, that comes with the theme!
There a button, top right on the site header, which opens up a contact slide in panel. ALL THE CONTACTS ARE THE DEMO ONES. They have managed to put their contacts in the actual contact page – so I guess that’s something. Although on the map on the contact page, it actually says that their business is called ‘Indian Herbal Remedies’. Ermmmm. (They’re in Panchkula which is a superb of Chandigarh, Punjab.)
All they’ve actually seemed to do on their site is to change the logo and added some extra pages – but that’s it.
But when I say ‘added some extra pages’, I don’t mean any with actual real or useful content. Oh no… They’ve created lots of ‘Digital Marking’, ‘Development’ and ‘Outsource’ pages with slightly different headings – BUT THEY’RE ALL THE SAME. In fact, they’re the same demo ‘IT Services’ page which comes with the theme.
Also… The demo staff are the same. The demo testimonials are the same. The demo blog posts are the same. The demo social media links are the same.
Some other things they could have changed/set are things like the meta title and description (the things you see in search results) and the main ‘heading 1’ text on the home page – all of which are pretty important for SEO. BUT…
There is NO meta description on the home page. There is NO heading 1 on the home page. The meta title on the home page is “Nucleo Analytics – My WordPress Blog” (which you get if you just give your site a name but nothing else).
THAT IS ALL TERRIBLE. They’ve not even done the most basic of things in setting up their own site, yet they want to manage sites for your clients?!!?!??!
I reckon that it must have taken them a good solid 10 to 15 minutes hard work to get the site up and running. Hmmmmm.
Their domain was registered in February 2021 and a quick search shows the company was legally registered in March 2021 in Rupnagar, Punjab.
So when the demo content says they’ve been in business for over 20 years and when Ronit says, in his email, that they’ve been in business for almost 7 years; both of those appear to be very not true.
From their business and domain registration, they’ve been in business less than 20 months, let alone 20 years (unlike myself who has been making sites and doing SEO for over 20 years).
Conclusion
Nucleo Analytics are SEO spammers.
They use generic gmail accounts to send out their spam, breaking multiple international anti-spam laws.
When asked why they do this, they don’t answer. (It’s funny how spammers don’t like answering questions about why they send out spam…)
Their own site is one of the laziest (if not the laziest) I’ve ever seen, with the very bare minimum done on it – and with basically NOTHING done SEO wise on their own SEO business.
And the only thing they really claim – the time they’ve been in business – appears to be total and utter rubbish.
If Nucleo Analytics spam you and say they can manage SEO things for you, the delete button is probably a better option.
But, as ever, the choice is yours…