Funny SEO emails, part 6

Folks at Google get cold-call emails out of the blue just like everybody else. Here’s an email that a colleague of mine got recently:

I was on your website www.google.com and wanted to shoot you a quick note. I think I can make a few changes (aesthetically and/or SEO – wise) to make your site convert more visitors into leads and to get it placed higher in the organic search results, for a few of the select terms.

This is NOT like one of those foreign emails you probably get in your inbox every day. Just to be upfront I have 3 agents that work with me for development /SEO.

I would just need to know which (if not both) services you’re open to checking out information about, either web design or SEO. Would you be open to seeing more brief info / quote for what I would like to accomplish?

Regards,
XXXXXX XXXXX

So this person is offering help to convert Google visitors into leads. Or, you know, to improve Google’s rankings in organic search results. Sigh.

Earlier this week, I got a different email that said

I would like to extend our knowledge to your audience in the form of a uest post [sic]. This post will be written by a college educated writer fluent in English.

To recap we will provide-
– 100% original guest post with statical [sic] data and studies from professional writers.

Here’s my rule of thumb: if someone sends you an email with an SEO offer out of the blue, be skeptical. For example, check out some other fun SEO emails that I’ve gotten in the past.

66 Responses to Funny SEO emails, part 6 (Leave a comment)

  1. D’oh! Like that Simpsons episode, “Insert Brain HERE ->” 🙂

  2. That first one is hilarious, thanks Matt….~!

  3. I hope you never replied … Internet Rule #1: Do Not Engage With Crazy People. If more people were aware of that rule, there’d much more peace and harmony about!

  4. Often these are people in third world countries trying to find some way to scrape up a few dollars. They probably come from a humble situation compared to people like us, and it is good to be thoughtful that not everyone went to a great school then on to a great job.

    • That’s exactly why this is a problem. If these people didn’t go to a great school and then on to a great job, they still would have had to have gotten the idea to send UCEs like this from somewhere. It didn’t just pop into their heads one day in one of those flash bulb “What a GREAT idea this is!” type of scenarios. Someone had to put it in in their heads. And who put it in their heads? The so-called Internet Marketing Industry Leaders, who went to great schools and then on to great jobs selling blue Kool-Aid.

      Quite frankly, I think Matt should have named these people as part of the education process.

      • The point I make is about who we are directory towards. It’s kind of like yelling at someone in a call center for failing to solve your problem. Is it their fault? If they are laughing with you, great! If we devaluing people, not good!

  5. Didn’t you or your colleague think about replying back? I’d be genuinely interested in knowing how they planned to improve search rankings for google.com 🙂

    Ruben

  6. Thanks Matt. Made me smile whilst I wake up with my morning cuppa (Yes, I’m a Brit!)

    It reminded me of a cold call I got some months ago. It goes like this:

    THEM: Hi, I’m from XYZ company and we can get your website to rank number 1 in Google

    ME: Are you near a computer?

    THEM: Yes

    ME: Please type in website promotion into Google and tell me who’s number 1 for that phrase in the UK.

    THEM: Oh, you are?

    ME: Maybe I can help your company. Would you like to hear about my services

    THEM: Click (They hung up!)

    • Hello Matt,

      It must be fun for you to read such emails..

      Hello Mike,
      The conversation is real fun… I hope that was just a joke and not a real conversation…

  7. Oh boy. Just checking my email tonight, and sure enough:

    Hello,

    I was just browsing around and came over your site http://www.mattcutts.com I felt its well built but can be improved in several ways to get better sales and revenue from the site. If you would like me to send you complete list of upgrading and improvements we could do to your site then kindly let me know.

    We assure you quality work and professional service at reasonable prices. We hold 8+ years of experience in building custom web applications.

    What we can do?

    # We can make your site more SEO friendly
    # Provide you with better user interface
    # Secure your codes to avoid hacking attempts
    # Redesign your site to make it look modern
    # Build mobile app for your site
    and much more…

    Kindly reply so that we could discuss this further and suggest you what can be done to improve http://www.mattcutts.com traffic and conversion rate.

    Sheeesh…

  8. @Matt, I guess the person who sent this email (Originally mentioned in this post), may get you on top in Bing 😉

    If you ever consider these emails, I would prefer to send my quote 🙂 Ha Ha… Kidding.

  9. So it seems that this sort of “automated” emails also gets through “Googles” filters, LOL. Funny indeed, and at least they actually got your domain right.. I’ve seen emails like this but with the wrong URLs and more 🙂

  10. Don’t use them Matt, you may get Google delisted and the process to get back is impossible.

  11. Thought I would share a parody for SEO newbies who have taken the wrong path.

  12. The least they could do is clean up their mailing lists! 🙂

  13. I think you must reply to them at-least once and see what they are going to offer you. I’m sure that would be more hilarious to see 🙂

    While the learning is that you must research well before sending out such spam automated email’s. The worst scenario is that they even don’t know they are trying to sell there services to Big Daddy itself who can get them out of SERP’s permanently.

    @Matt – Suggestion can’t it be also an factor while awarding rankings to make a database of all such email senders (and their website off-course) and show them the real Google Power. Let see what they can do by sending email to themselves on improving their website rankings, traffic…blah..blah 🙂

  14. Ha! These email are hilarious. Any SEO company that thinks they can improve upon Google, clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

    At the company I work for, we get similar emails all the time as well as recommendations from colleagues who work in sales, not SEO or web content development. I think it’s hilarious how little these people generally know, and it’s sad to think that some people and companies fall for these services and recommendations that in the long run don’t really benefit them very much.

  15. Yeah I think Google needs a boost in SEO. don’t think they’re converting enough people.

  16. Perhaps you should have taken them up on their offers – after all no business is too big to learn from others!! He might know more about the latest Google algorithm than Google. Keep up the great posts.

  17. Hey Matt,

    I guess when you get bored in the office you good have a great laughter time in reading such mails.

  18. Hey Matt,

    I guess when you get bored in the office you would be having a great laughter time in reading such mails.

  19. Haha I wonder what changes they would suggest… Even in a different country, who doesn’t know Google?!

  20. Recently I read in a blog a funny post about SEO dos and dont’s and the first don’t was: “Do not ask Google for a link exchange!” But offering Google SEO-help is way better. Totally hilarious 😀

  21. 😀 its seems like student telling his teacher “come to me i will teach you better”. lolzz what a crazy person!

  22. Hi Matt,

    Why is my comment “awaiting moderation” and in the mean time useless comments get approved ?
    Hehehe… I find this more funny then you getting seo mails for google.com : )

    — rishi

  23. I am extremely interested to know how some SEO company can help Google with their ranking… Regardless, I needed a good laugh and that post definitely provided one. Thanks for sharing that lol

    BTW super super super excited to see you are Pubcon! 🙂

  24. This is indeed a hoax, I think the email is often done automatically.

  25. Hahaha best thing I have read on your blog matt, Always thought if these emails made their way to Google now this confirms it.

  26. This is the downside of the Internet … the shame is that so many people are hooked by approaches such as these.

    Receive so many of these everyday, then there’s the phone calls.

  27. Hi
    I think it could be one your colleagues just pulling your legs …

  28. That first one is pretty funny! Sadly, I get emails like this everyday. Most of them are very generic. I often also find spelling or other grammatical errors in the email. Either way, a grammatically incorrect, generic email finds its way to the trash pretty quickly :).

  29. Haha the first one is great! These must be so fun to get, a nice laugh for a hard day of work.

  30. OMG now I know I’m not alone…. It’s CRAZY what they send & oh so funny & annoying to say the least. Thanks for the laugh!!

  31. Cannot imagine a person is offering SEO services to google. I was thinking, how much confident he is about his SEO services. :D. Beware Matt, Google is loosing it’s ranking. 😀

  32. Funny!

    Hello, I can make your site (www.google.com) rank higher in search engines, also (www.google.com)

    Hate automated emails!

  33. Maybe Google needs help ranking in the other search engines 🙂

  34. Oh great! Just when I decide to see what’s Matt doing. Matt Cuts decides to cut off Social media and news.. lol

  35. lolz… I can’t stop myself. I also get these type of e-mails but e-mails like this to google.com haha..

  36. This guy must be confident in his abilities to offer to do all googles seo

  37. I keep getting these emails all the time! They say “I’ve had a good look at your website…” but when i look at the analytics from their specific visit to my website it turns out that they only visited two pages: the homepage and the contact page (to send me this email) and the total time spent in their visit is approximately 7-10 seconds.
    And the IP address usually turns out to be registered in India.

  38. Maybe it’s a salesperson over at Bing! The sad truth is these emails must work on a small number of poor souls. After all like anything it’s a numbers game which is unfortunately why emails like this will always be common place.

  39. Hahah, that is rather hilarious Matt!

    I wonder how successful these types of emails actually are? Anyone have any idea?

    I know it is extremely spammy, but with so many people doing it there must be some sort of ROI.

    Cheers,
    Josh

    • Hi Josh,

      I would suspect that there will be a lot of business owners who unfortunately won’t really know that it’s an automated spam email and therefore fall for it.

      Don’t get me wrong the general level of knowledge out there is way better than in the late 90’s, but the spammers are constantly developing new techniques to fool people.

      What I find incredible is that the spelling and grammar hasn’t really got that much better despite access to the internet!

  40. Hey Matt,

    Amazing post and different, you must have good time while reading this kinds of email…LOL

    Thanks

  41. Love those emails 🙂

    I got them everyday… Funniest thing is I’m SEO provider as well so when I got one like that for the first time I was like “what the f*****?” Are my competitors so confident to try and get me on their service? Can’t they see that I’m SEO guy as well?!

    Then I realised it’s just bot email.

    BTW, do you need some help in ranking higher? I can optimize for “Google best search engine” or “Matt Cutts best SEO guy”? Just let me know and I will get back to you ASAP! 😉

  42. The emails are ridiculous, but the phone calls I get are even better.
    If I have the time, I like to let them ramble on about how important it is to have the special keywords that Google is looking for so my site can be ahead of all my local competitors, how they have a team of over 20 developers who know SEO programming better than anyone, and can propel my business to the top of the Google results because they work directly with all the major search engines…

    Eventually, I stop them and ask them if they know what type of business they are calling, or say “Well, my business is very specialized and I am not really sure if what you are saying will help me.” After an uncomfortable pause while they check their call list, they either hang up or say something like “Oh, you are also SEO company… are you interested in outsourcing link building?”

  43. Oh I get these all the time. The senders are vague, and it’s very obvious they have done little research about my business.

    Especially when it’s an out of the blue message. I simply Google the senders name and email address, and a review or report will give them away immediately.

  44. Ha, made my day. Can’t stop laughing…
    Here is a pun my 7 year old made. Hope googlers might like it. It’s from my website’s laughter section… I hope he wins “google creative kid” award if there is one…

    Babu: How does a baby find things on the internet?
    Mommy: How?
    Babu: Goo-goo-googles it!

  45. LOL. That is hilarious and the irony is just too much. Thank you for sharing.

  46. Too funny, I almost fell out of my chair on this one! I have to admit random email blasts is one the biggest wastes of money EVER! I mean really, who actually read junk/spam emails and consider them to be a reliable source for what every their trying to pitch your way? Everyone should know by now that the only spam people buy is usually in a can 😉

  47. Are these people dumb,? SEO services providing on emails ahhh bad signal to me..

  48. Can’t believe I’ve only just found this, very amusing.

    But don’t worry, I’ve just checked and you’re listed #1 & #2 on both Yahoo & Bing so there’s nothing to worry about

  49. Matt,

    I think you must try them once and let see the list of recommendation? LOL

    They will offer you like your website have no content please use content on Google Home page. LOL

  50. I get these emails all the time. Most of them are filled with spelling errors and offer a “free” analysis of my website. I guess the theory is to send as many of these crazy emails to as many people as you can and hope a few take the bait. Such a waste.

  51. It’s a shame some sort of “Stupid Tax” can’t be levied on people who send emails like those.
    Perhaps there could be some sort of Alexa type website to rank people/businesses for the level of daftness in the messages they put out?

  52. Hi Matt,
    Although very funny, it is a bit sad though, that these type of emails do get the attention on your blog, whereas emails send with legit and important questions or suggestions never do get the attention they deserve, let alone a straight to the point answer. I have send a few questions in on the topic of ‘bad seo by third party’ and never got an answer from anyone in Google. If a person goes to the Google webmaster help forum (cause where ELSE to go?) with questions about possible bad seo done by a third party, 99% sure these ‘forum helpers’ will nuke the person, assuming the person asking the question is also the spammer.

    Just sayin’

    Other than that, very very funny that someone is so hideously stupid to send this to you. Did you take them up on the offer? Did they make you convert more?

    It is people like these Matt, that screw it up a lot, for the hard working webmaster.

    If I may ask a question or two:

    Question 1: How bad is ‘Bad SEO by a third party REALLY’?

    Question 2: How does Google see whether or not a webmaster bought a link they got?

    I have seen it myself: Getting loads of spammy links to one of our main sites, but we sure as hell are not creating them. How DOES Google determine the difference, or more important: The truth?

    Knowing this makes ALL the difference to webmasters.

    Thanks,
    Walt

  53. first one was totally hilarious, totally unrelated but equally funny “other day I was on Hostg****.com and I was on Live Chat so the rep asked what can I do for you, I replied “I am your Google Spyder an Automated Program!” so the prompt reply I got was well we don’t sell Google Automated Programs! we sell web hosting! ;)”

  54. Wow they’ve got 3 agents to work on SEO. Really funny story! Though to be fair, Google, according to its own guidelines, might get a penguin in no time, for selling paid links on its site through Adwords, for example, Lol.

  55. Hi Matt,

    I would like to start this message by saying that is arguably one of the funniest posts I think I have seen on your blog to date!

    So many questions to ask about how that company managed to leave Google.com on their list of websites to e-mail, or perhaps they are literally going through every single website on the internet.

    Anyway thank you for this hilarious post and making a cold and wet Monday in England much more entertaining.

    Regards

  56. Take care on your trip and have Fun! Thanks on all those informative videos. as a new seo i have a lot of reading to do here.

    If you visit Israel in your trip.. your welcome for a coffe.

  57. I get similar emails daily.. Halarious at best of times. Disturbing at worse!

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