Do YOU get those “I found some errors on your website…” emails too?

By Brett Lloyd Abbott, MYM Austin Inc.

I’ll bet you’ve received plenty of those email messages, WARNING you that your website has problems. Such as this one, that just came in this morning:

My name is Joe and I am a Digital Marketing Specialists for a Creative Agency. I was doing some industry benchmarking for a client of mine when I came across your website <they insert your website URL here>. You have a nice website, but I noticed a few technical errors which correspond to a drop of website traffic over the last 6-8 months which I thought I would bring to your attention on.

Funny thing is – this guy Joe left this same exact message on at least a dozen of my clients’ websites in the last 24 hours. And hundreds of other spammers like “Joe” are doing the exact same thing to thousands of unsuspecting business owners (such as yourself), every day.

These guys are easy to spot if you know what to look for.

I have a big advantage spotting these guys, because I see so many of them from so many different websites.You don’t have that advantage, so let me offer you a few tips to help you spot the bogus ones: 

1. They look and sound a lot like the message above (a friendly but unsolicited warning).
2. The have a Gmail address instead of an actual business domain email address.
3. They compliment your website. (You have a nice website…)
   
4. Then they offer some vague jargon on what the “secret problems” are.
5. They use bad grammar. (Such as “I am a Digital Marketing Specialists.”)
6. They give no hint of understanding what your business actually does.

These are “CYBER-MARKETERS,” paid to SPAM you.

In 99% of the cases, these people don’t know anything about you or your website. These are just paid “cyber-marketers” in India who are paid to spam any and every business they can find with this “scare bait,”hoping someone will reply back in a panic, and ask for their help.

Trusting these guys to fix your so-called “website problems” would be a BAD IDEA.

I should be embarrassed, but I’ll admit that I’ve tried working with people like this before (low-cost website/SEO companies in India). And what I have universally discovered is that they create a lot more problems than they fix. That’s because:

• They use the lowest cost methods possible. (Usually WordPress and inexperienced college students.)
• They use lots of “add-ons,” which (1) slow down your website, and (2) add security risk.
• They can destroy the “flow” of your website (in part, because of language barriers), which will reduce the number of people who contact you through your website.
• Ultimately, they can hurt your Google rankings, which typically is what they were promising to fix in the first place.

As I said, I experimented with not one but two highly reputable website companies in India several years ago. And sadly, when it was all said and done, my US website team had to rebuild every single website they built for me.

So no, I definitely did NOT save money. But at least I learned a lesson.

My bottom line recommendation – when you see these “friendly warnings,” you can ignore them, or you can forward them to your existing website team. But I would strongly recommend you DO NOT respond to an unsolicited or unknown website spammer, thinking they are going to “save the day” with your “tragically damaged” website.

It’s called SPAM for a reason.

To your success…