I’ve already done a post about a spam/fake domain email sent to one of my clients and one about spam/scams trying to get you to renew your domain at a huge cost.
This post is about a scam getting you to pay to submit your domain to search engines. (Short Version – YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY. If you get an email saying you do, press delete!)
This email came into my account but used the domains belonging to one of my clients. I’ve removed the domain for their privacy.
Here’s the email I received – it had the subject: “What is next for [domain name]” and went:
Attention: Important Notice , DOMAIN SERVICE NOTICE
Domain Name: [domain name]ATT: [registrar’s name]
[domain name]
Response Requested By
14 – May. – 2023PART I: REVIEW NOTICE
ATT: [registrar’s name]
As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification for your business Domain name search engine registration. This letter is to inform you that it’s time to send in your registration.Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web.
Privatization allows the consumer a choice when registering. Search engine registration includes domain name search engine submission. Do not discard, this notice is not an invoice it is a courtesy reminder to register your domain name search engine listing so your customers can locate you on the web.
This Notice for: [domain name] will expire at 11:59PM EST, 14 – May. – 2023 Act now!
Select Package:
[hacked/used domain]/domain/?domain=[domain name]
Everything in this email is a load of rubbish. This scam has been around for YEARS although it’s the first time I’ve had one in my inbox.
The scammers use many a different hacked/compromised/acquired domains and also send out the emails from random emails from those domains.
All of the pages you’re sent to look the same though. The scam is run by a company called “Exalt’s Design” who have a London PO box on the scam sites, but actually seem to be run by a Hungarian citizen.
The IP of the domain they were using on the email they sent me pointed to a server in Bulgaria belonging to a company with a reputation for hosting all sorts of scams and iffy content! (The scam domain they used in my email, which was a woman’s name and the main site used a template for a techy blogger, is no longer active but a Google of “Exalt’s Design” shows there are several other sites they’re still using which are active.)
Let me make it very clear YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY TO SUBMIT A SITE TO SEARCH ENGINE. And there’s also no ‘expiration date’ for submitting a site to search engine – they just added that to scare people into doing something – seriously not good.
Basically this scam wants to charge you up $297 to submit a site to ‘the top 50 search engines’ for 5 years! (And they probably would never actually submit the site anyway, they’d just take your money and run.)
There are only really two search engines you need to submit a new site to: Google and Bing (and possibly Yandex but probably not). Both Google and Bing (and Yandex) have free (and the proper) ways of submitting sites to them:
They’re all free and pretty simple to use. That’s it!
Conclusion
Please beware if you get a scary looking email like this.
If an email claims that you need to do anything like a “business Domain name search engine registration” YOU DON’T.
You can submit your site to big search engines like Google and Bing but YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY to do it!
So if you get an email like this. Hit the delete button!