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 came in from a ‘David’ who was using an @bestdgital.com.com email address.
The subject was just ‘whyeaster.com’ (the domain of my site) and it went:
Hello whyeaster.com;
Hope you are doing well.
I am a digital media expert representing a very successful Bangalore based website design & SEO Company. I found your details from the internet and thought you might be interested in optimizing your website and getting a new website design.
I have prepared an extensive report for you, detailing some key issues that should be fix for better online visibility of your website.
I would like to give you an idea how we can help you to achieve the success.
I have a large professional team who can fix all the issues at an affordable price. I am assuring that you will see a drastic change in your Google search ranking once these are fixed.
If this is something you are interested in then allow me to send you a proposal.
Looking forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
David BunnDigital Strategy Consultant
Don’t want to receive these emails in the future? Reply to this email with ‘Unsubscribe’ in the subject line.
Some of David’s email is the same as one from The SEO Company USA, one of the most prolific SEO spammers out there who’ve I’ve dealt with before.
Two days later I had some more spam from this company. This time from an ‘Eric’ who was also using an @bestdgital.com email. This time the subject was “Remove whyeaster.com Errors” and it went:
Dear business owner of whyeaster.com,
How is it possible that your website is having so many errors? Yes, most of the people share their anger and frustration once they get my email.
Now, I will show you the number of broken links, pages that returned 4XX status code upon request, images with no ALT text, pages with no meta description tag, not having an unique meta description, having too long title, etc.
I have a large professional team who can fix all the above issues immediately at an affordable price. I guarantee you will see a drastic change in your Google search ranking once these are fixed.
If this is something you are interested in, then allow me to send you a no obligation audit report.
Looking forward to your reply.Best Regards,
Eric Brown | DM ConsultantMarketing Consultant
PS: I am not spamming. I have studied your website, prepared an audit report and believe I can help with your business promotion.
I’ve found that if an email has that it’s not spam – it probably is…
Eric’s email is basically the same as the one used by Crushaders – some other rather clueless SEO spammers we’ve dealt with before as well…
So it would appear that Best Dgital/Digital can’t even come up with an original spam template!
Anyway, I replied to Eric.
Hi Eric,
That sounds interesting. I look forward to seeing what your audit report says.
Thanks
It’s now been over well over a fortnight and I’ve not heard back from Eric. Hmmmm. If I ever do get a reply, I’ll post an update 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…
Their site is at bestdgital.com which was registered in early January 2023 – just about 3 months ago! (Note the missing ‘i’ in ‘digital’. bestdigital.com is for sale with a domain broker. There’s no set price but looking at the company’s other sales it would probably be several thousand pounds/dollars!)
Their site has 4 HTML errors. They’re all minor ones which could easily be fixed…
Using the WAVE Accessibility checking tool, this site has 3 errors and 3 contrast errors. Again, pretty simple to fix – if they actually wanted to.
Using the Google Lighthouse speed test tool the site gets:
Performance: 53
Accessibility: 87
Best Practices: 100
SEO: 86
Again, not exactly brilliant – especially in Performance.
In compassion, my Easter site has 0 HTML or Accessibility errors and get 100/100 across the board!
The site is using a decent off the shelf WordPress Theme. So it’s actually responsible for the low level of HTML and Accessibility errors. The only thing that Best Dgital / Best Digital are responsible for is the ‘Performance’ and they’ve not exactly done a good job with that…
The alt text on their logo is empty, that’s not good for SEO and usability. Their home page Meta title is ‘Best Digital’ and there’s no Meta Description on the home page. ALL THREE of those things are also things that Eric’s email says are wrong on my site (they’re not) but they have on their own site. Hmmmmmm.
The site looks like it’s got lots of pages and links. Only NONE OF THEM WORK! If you try to click on anything on the site (well page), nothing happens. Not. A. Sausage.
There’s some words about the ‘services’ that they offer. Only a quick Google shows that all of this text has been, erm, borrowed, from different sites. None of it was written by Best Digital.
Next on the page is an ‘about; section. It has three bullet points. They’ve all got dummy latin in them. Not exactly helpful then.
Then there’s a ‘numbers’ section. It’s really quite amusing. They claim to have:
1,250 + Happy Clients
2,450 + Completed Project
85 + Professional Team
120 + Awward Won (they won’t win any spelling awards…)
I mean that’s either amazingly impressive in just over three months OR they’re all made up. I know which I’d favour out of those two options!
Next up is a ‘recent projects’ section using all stock graphics (which don’t link anywhere).
Then there are three testimonials. Only they’re all also on the site of a different SEO company in Bhubaneswar… Hmmmmm. There are also photos with the quotes, which are all stock photos; and the names next to the quotes are all ‘western’ where as the ones on the other SEO site are ones from the Indian Sub Continent.
There’s meant to be a blog section next, only there’s nothing there. Oops.
And right at the bottom is the footer. Complete with two paras of dummy latin text, lots of links that don’t go anywhere. There are also four social media icons. Only one is linked to anything. It’s the LinkedIn icon which links to the Facebook home page. Erm, yeah…
This site joins the lists of ‘laziest sites by SEO spammers’. (They might even win an award for that…)
A Google of the domain shows up only a very few results. Three from their own site (the home page and two sample/demo pages that come with the WordPress installation) and a few sites which list newly registered domains.
This really isn’t the sort of result you’d expect for a company with over 2000 projects behind them. But it is the sort of result you’d expect from an SEO spammer who’s only been around for a few months…
The only contact on the site is an email address. There’s no phone number or address.
Conclusion
Best Dgital / Best Digital are SEO spammers.
They send out spam using ‘tried and tested’ spam templates (i.e. they can’t even make their own up!).
Their own site is basically an ‘out of the box’ one that they’ve done practically NOTHING to.
They claim to be a ‘very successful Bangalore based website design & SEO Company’, only they’ve been around for less than four months – so that’s a lie then.
So if Best Dgital / Best Digital say that your site has ‘errors’. Pressing the delete button on the email is probably the better option.
But, as ever, the choice is yours…