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 spam was a few months in the making. Mainly because many of the replies from the spammer went into my spam folder!
Anyway, it started on 7th January 2023 when an email came in from a ‘Joe’ who was using an @seo440.biz email address.
The subject was ‘Revision (Website Redesign) – whychristmas.com’ and it went:
Dear whychristmas.com Owner,
If you have 5 – 10 minutes free anytime this week, I would like to talk to you about my plan on how I can help to “Revision (Website Redesign)”of your website, and no, I am not expensive at all!
Think about it, if I can’t convince you in 10 minutes, we’ll pretend we never spoke and I’ll never bother you again 🙂
Let me know what you think.
Kind Regards,
Joe [name removed for privacy, although I’m sure it’s fake]
So I replied asking why my site needs a redesign (this will become crucial!)
Hi,
I can’t do a call. But can you tell me in an email why my site needs a redesign?
What’s wrong with it now?
What’s your plan?
Thanks.
Here we start with the ‘went into the spam’ replies. The first was on the 12th January, so a few days after I replied to Joe…
Dear website owner,
Happy New Year 🎉Website Revision not only includes design improvement but also error correction and SEO performance enhancement of the website.
I have analyzed your website and found that the overall design looks good. However the placement of keywords is not correct and your website needs some SEO friendly changes. Correcting them will increase your website presence and your website will gain more traffic & business.
Please let me know your thoughts so I can suggest a plan with the best possible offer.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards
Joe [name removed for privacy]
Business Development ManagerSEO440 Tech, Inc.
Ah, now Joe is saying the design is ok but there are ‘errors’. Hmmmm. The next email in the spam arrived on the 17th January…
Dear Website Owner,
I hope you had a great weekend.Did you have a chance to go through the previous email and have a look at the SEO proposal? Let me know your views.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards
Joe [name removed for privacy]
Business Development ManagerSEO440 Tech, Inc.
A fairly standard follow up email. Three days later, on the 20th January, another email arrived from Joe!
Dear Website Owner,
I hope you are having a great week.In regards to our recent correspondence as seen in the email trail below, would you be so kind to let me have your feedback.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Happy New Year 🎉
Best Regards
Joe [name removed for privacy]
Business Development ManagerSEO440 Tech, Inc.
Another fairly standard follow up. Although I’m guessing ‘Joe’ has been using this spam template for a while as it’s the 20th Jan and it’s still got ‘Happy New Year’ in it!
The next email from Joe arrived on the 24th March – so after a break of over THREE MONTHS! That’s some deep spammy follow-up!
Dear Website Owner,
I hope you’re having a wonderful day.It’s been a long time since we haven’t been able to connect with each other. Did you have a chance to go through the previous emails? Let me know your views.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards
Joe Schiffer
Business Development ManagerSEO440 Tech, Inc.
As I actually (finally) saw one of Joe’s replies, I replied! I also had some questions…
Hi Joe,
Sorry but your emails all went into my spam folder…
In your first email, you said my site needs a redesign. So I asked why…
Then in your email of the 12th Jan 23 you said:
“I have analyzed your website and found that the overall design looks good. However the placement of keywords is not correct and your website needs some SEO friendly changes. Correcting them will increase your website presence and your website will gain more traffic & business.”
So it doesn’t need a redesign? Why did you say it did? This is confusing to me.
Can you tell me more about the keywords and the other SEO changes that it needs?
Thanks.
The next I got a reply (it also went into my spam, but now I was looking for it!)
Dear Website Owner,
I hope you had a great weekend.Let me clear your confusion first.
In the first email I told you about Website Revision.
In the second email I said that.
Website Revision not only includes design improvement but also error correction and SEO performance enhancement of the website.Now providing simplification to your other queries below.
Keyword analysis is the process of analyzing the keywords or search phrases that bring visitors to your website through organic and paid search. As such, keyword analysis is the starting point and cornerstone of search marketing campaigns.
The technical issues are fixed first to make the website SEO friendly with all the google guidelines. Then the marketing and promotional work starts which is an ongoing process. If any further issues arise or any minor website changes needed during the ongoing process then it’s also fixed to make sure the website runs fine without any hiccups.
We have four different readymade plans available on our website. However, after analysing your website I propose the Basic package of $400/month for your website. The Basic plan will cover all the technical issue fixing along with ongoing SEO promotion & website maintenance.
You can check and compare all our plans here: https://www.seo440.com/pricing
If you don’t find this plan fit your requirements then we can custom craft a plan for you.Let me know.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
So when Joe said I needed a ‘redesign’ he didn’t literally mean a ‘redesign’. Ah, OK… And he won’t tell me what any of the ‘errors’ are; just that they need fixing. Hmmmmm. I had more questions, lots of them…
Hi Joe,
If your email was primarily about ‘Revision’, why did the subject specifically include the words ‘Website Redesign’? If you didn’t actually mean a redesign, why did you put it in the email subject and then repeat the phrase in the text of the email?
In my previous email, I asked about the other SEO changes that you say my site needs. You have still not answered this. You just say they need fixing. That’s not helpful.
Let me ask you some more questions.
Please can you tell me why your company thinks it’s ok to spam people to get business?
Your initial email was IN BREACH OF ALL the pieces of anti-spam legislation listed below (and many others from around the world).
For the UK (where I live) 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 the USA (where your site says you’re located), you are breaking at least four aspects of CAN-SPAM compliance: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
For CASL in Canada, you need consent to send electronic marketing – which you did not have: https://fightspam-combattrelepourriel.ised-isde.canada.ca/site/canada-anti-spam-legislation/en/getting-consent-send-email
The Anti Spam Act in Australia has similar conditions for consent, which your emails also do not meet: 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/
In France the Trust in the Digital Economy Act says that you have to have consent to send marketing emails, which you did not have: https://www.culture.gouv.fr/en/Thematiques/Industries-culturelles-et-creatives/Dossiers-thematiques/Le-spam/Le-cadre-juridique-La-legislation-francaise-en-matiere-de-spam
For The Netherlands, the Dutch Telecommunications Act says that you need consent to send people marketing emails, which you did not have.
https://sherloc.unodc.org/cld/document/nld/1988/telecommunications_act_of_the_netherlands.htmlI look forward to getting your answers to my questions.
It’s been well over two weeks and I’ve not heard back from Joe – somehow I doubt I will this time. But If I do, I’ll post an update on here!
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…
Joe spammed me using an @seo440.biz email address. That domain was registered in May 2017. If you go to that domain, it forwards you to their main domain seo440.com. I always think it’s ‘interesting’ when a company sends spam from a different domain to what their main site is…
Their main domain at seo440.com which was registered in June 2016.
This site has 29 HTML errors. Not a very good start. (My Christmas site has no errors.)
Using the WAVE Accessibility checking tool, this site has 12 errors and 44 contrast errors. Not bad, but not good either… (My Christmas site has no errors of either kind.)
Using the Google Lighthouse speed test tool the site gets:
Performance: 47
Accessibility: 87
Best Practices: 92
SEO: 77
My site gets:
Performance: 100
Accessibility: 100
Best Practices: 100
SEO: 100
So my site is better (well perfect) across the board. They’re using a decent off the shelf theme. It’s really responsible for the last three numbers. The only one they really have good control of is the Performance and that’s somewhat lacking…
There’s no alt text on their logo image. That’s not good for SEO or Accessibility. The logo is also in a Heading 4 tag. Don’t do that.
There are three ‘Heading 1’ tags on the home page. You should really only have one.
The Meta Title for the home page is “Home – SEO440”. Erm, that’s pretty rubbish SEO wise. Their Meta Description is nearly 400 characters long. Ideally it should be about 130-140. Hmmm. And it’s actually just the opening words on the page. They haven’t set a specific meta description for SEO. That’s frankly terrible. And they want to tell me how to do SEO…?!
When you first load anywhere on the site, as soon as you scroll the page a MASSIVE full screen pop-up appears with a picture of a “$400 Space Ship”. (Yeah I have no idea what that means either; at least a ‘rocket ship’ might make some sense.)
It basically wants to make you click through to their prices page – yuck. What’s even more yuck is that the ‘close’ button for the pop-up is TINY and it’s a little black ‘x’ on a dark purple background – i.e. basically impossible for you to see.
If you click the button and go to the Prices page; as soon as you scroll – THE POP-UP SHOWS AGAIN wanting you to click to the page your already on!!!!
The ONLY way to stop this amazingly annoying pop-up from covering the whole site is to click the tiny ‘x’. And when you do this, another pop-up banner appears at the bottom of the screen with a nag button to the Contact page – AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
In the footer there are links to social media account for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Their Facebook was last posted to on 31st December 2020; Twitter was 2nd Nov 2016 and on YouTube there’s one video – a video testimonial from over SEVEN years ago.
Honestly, if you treat your social media like that, it’s probably best not to link to it!
Also their Twitter bio says “Get 100% ethical Search Optimization Services to enhance your website visibility. #1 Position Over Google and other major search engines for years.”
I see two problems with that.
- Is spamming people claiming that they need a redesign and then saying they don’t ethical?!
- Google itself has something to say about companies which make claims about getting #1 rankings on Google…
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?”
On their contact page there’s an address in New Jersey, USA. Looking at it on Google Maps, it’s a large office block. It also appears to offer virtual offices. So SEO440 might be located there, or they might not. Looking at New Jersey business registries, I can’t find any sign of a New Jersey based business called “SEO400”. Hmmmm.
They do have a New Jersey phone number on their website (but virtual?!) yet on Joe’s email there was a different number – this time in South Carolina (in the area of where Clemson is – GO TIGERS!).
Doing a Google of “SEO440” I also found an Indian Business listing of an “SEO400 Technologies” in Khorda, Odisha. Now that could be a coincidence of names right?
Well, another result was a LinkedIn profile for someone, from Odisha, who says they’re the SEO Tech Manager at four SEO sites, including seo440.com. Hmmmm.
But it gets even curiouser! The LinkedIn profile lists one of the sites/companies as the ‘parent’ one. Looking on its site, it’s clearly in Odisha – aha! (Of the other two sites, one has an address in Odisha and one for a residential address in VERY rural Georgia, USA and the other has a residential address in VERY rural North Carolina. Hmmmm – again.)
But… the parent company site has also got one of the same testimonials as on the SEO440 site! They’re identical apart from the name of the business. The one on the SEO440 site doesn’t have an image with it – but the parent company site does.
I put some of the text from this testimonial into Google and it’s also on one of the other sites mentioned in the LinkedIn Profile!
So it would seem that the information on the LinkedIn profile is correct – that these are four connected companies, primarily based in Odisha.
The times of the emails that ‘Joe’ sent me would also fit much more for office hours in Odisha, than in New Jersey (where they would have been around midnight!).
So SEO440 could be based in New Jersey, but shall we say I’m not convinced… I don’t actually care where they’re based. But I do care if they’re lying.
They do have pages for a Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Accessibility Statement. That’s a good start. But some of the content is rather questionable.
Having an Accessibility Statement is great. However, if you don’t actually seem to care about accessibility on your site, that’s a different matter. On the statement they claim “Our website is regularly tested by independent accessibility consultants to further improve the accessibility of the site.”
Well then why does it have multiple VERY SIMPLE accessibility issues that the main free accessibility testing tool on the web shows up? What tools are their ‘accessibility consultants’ actually using? And whey haven’t SEO440 sorted these (very basic) things out?
The vast majority of the Accessibility Statement is about how to make your text bigger or to change the colour contrast in your operating system. Erm, that’s not what web accessibility is about folks. Making accessible sites means YOU SHOULD NOT NEED TO DO THOSE THINGS to be able to use a site. (There’s an Accessibility Policy on this site which says what you can do on the site accessibility wise.)
On the Cookie Policy page, it explains what cookies are and lists what cookies the sites uses. Only it’s wrong. It lists 11 cookies with explanations. But when I run the site through a cookie checker it only uses 4 cookies – ALL of which are different from the ones listed on their page. Erm, oops.
Their Privacy Policy is one of the best I’ve seen on SEO spammers. So real credit for that. However, they’re still spammers and in breach of multiple anti-spam laws.
We’ve seen they say they’re based in the USA. Well, their actions are certainly in breach (on multiple points) of the US CAN-SPAM act.
Conclusion
SEO440 are SEO spammers. (The fact that multiple of the emails went into a spam folder would see to confirm this!)
They appear to have a domain set-up primarily set-up as a way of sending spam. It’s similar to their main domain but with a different extension. Why would you do that unless you don’t want to make your main domain look spammy?!
When asked to explain inconsistencies in their spam, they can’t; and when asked more questions, they don’t reply.
They claim to be a US based company, only a bit of investigation shows that they’re part of an Indian based network of SEO companies.
So if you get an email from the @seo440.biz domain, the delete button might be a better option.
But, as ever, the choice is yours…