Bill Hartzer
Jun 15th 2007

Tags: Search Engine Marketing

SEO Company Promoting Search Engine Marketing Services to Me?

spam

It simply amazes me that companies–and individuals, for that matter, can think that sending unsolicited commercial email (aka UCE or otherwise known as SPAM) to try to get more clients. I understand that if you send out 1 million of these emails that you might actually get .01 percent to respond to your “offer”. However, it’s now against the law to send unsolicited commercial email, and there’s a good chance that you will annoy more people who will either a)complain about you or b)write a blog post about the fact that you send out unsolicited commercial email to companies. I chose the latter.

We need do something about SPAM and companies who call themselves “search engine marketers” or “SEO Companies”. If you’re going to do business in this industry then you need to realize that sending UCE is not acceptable. By sending junque like this you’re giving the Search Marketing Industry a black eye.

What’s even more hilarious is that a company that calls themselves an “SEO Company: Search Engine Marketing Experts: Search Engine Optimization Los Angeles” is trying to promote their “profitable internet marketing” services to one of their competitors, me.

What proof? I checked my email today, and got what I would call an “unsolicited commercial email” from someone named Neal Stone, the Executive Vice President of a company called NetSuccessUSA:

From: “Neal Stone”
To:
Subject: Suggestion re: billhartzer.com
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:45:02 +0530

Dear Website Owner,

If I could get you five times the RELEVANT traffic at a substantially reduced cost would you be interested? NetSuccessUSA can place your website on top of the Natural Listings on Google, Yahoo and MSN. Our Search Engine Optimization team delivers more top rankings than anyone else and we can prove it. We do not use “link farms” or “black hat” methods that Google and the other search engines frown upon and can use to de-list or ban your site. The techniques are proprietary, involving some valuable closely held trade secrets. Our prices are less than half of what other companies charge.

I would be happy to send you a proposal using the top search phrases for your area of expertise. Please contact me at your convenience so I can start saving you some money. Please do not hesitate to email or call me if you would like further information.

Sincerely,
Neal Stone
Executive Vice President

NetSuccessUSA
26500 W. Agoura Road
Suite 102-547
Calabasas, California 91302

Phone – 866-669-8789
Toll Free – 866.446.2885
XXXXXXXXX@gmail.com
Profitable Internet Marketing

I’ve chosen specifically not to list this guy’s gmail address in the above email. What’s interesting is that they specifically do not list their company’s URL and they don’t list; apparently it was sent from a gmail account, but most likely not.

The reason I’m talking about this unsolicited email I got today is not to promote this company called NetSuccessUSA or even pick on them. I’m getting sick and tired of companies in this Search Engine Marketing industry say that they don’t use “blackhat” methods to promote a company’s web site. But apparently it’s perfectly okay to send out unsolicited commercial emails? This is exactly why the search engine marketing industry suffers a “black eye” and why people like Jason Calacanis have turned against the SEO industry. There are too many “snake oil salespeople” in this industry who “promise the world” to companies and do not deliver. I hear stories from companies every single day that talk about how they got burned by their last search engine optimization or search engine marketing company.

I have been in the search engine marketing industry for a long time. In fact, I’ve been doing organic search engine optimization since 1996–long before Google even existed and a long time before Goto.com came up with their “pay per click” business model. So, needless to say I’ve “seen it all”.

After I got this unsolicited commercial email from some guy named Neal Stone, I thought I would look into them a little bit more–and examine some of the company’s practices. First, I took at at their backlinks. I like to look at a site’s links by using the linkdomain:domain.com -site:domain.com which tells you all of the backlinks a site has–minus the links from that particular site (their internal links).

Once again, I found that the majority of the backlinks to this “SEO company” is from their clients, companies like the “San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council” and “Magic Kids USA”. Why is this interesting? The links are not on-topic and have absolutely nothing to do with the SEO Company. And I would gather that the SEO company put those links there, Magic Kids USA nor the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council wanted to link to their SEO company. Furthermore, this violates the Google Webmaster Guidelines that can be found here:

You should never have to link to an SEO.

If you haven’t read the Google Webmaster Guidelines, then you should go over here and take a look. Google does a good job of outlining what you should look out for, and they even talk about the fact that you should be wary of companies that email you out of the blue:

Be wary of SEO firms that send you email out of the blue.

In this case, NetSuccessUSA and some guy named Neal Stone emailed me, a Search Engine Marketing Expert, pitching their SEO services. Now you have to admit, that’s kind of funny.

No wonder the SEO industry has such a black eye. What are we going to do to fix it? Any suggestions?

Are you looking for marketing services such as social media optimization, search engine marketing, pay per click program management or consulting, or search engine optimization services? Feel free to contact me.

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12 total comments, leave a comment.
  1. Ellen DuBois
    Jul 25th 2007

    Hello,

    I just wanted to thank you for your information. I just received an email from Neal Stone and the subject line was: Suggestion re: miscarriagehelp.com. Being the extra-careful type when it comes to opening ANY email, I got a gut feeling about this one, (even though the subject line was very specific, I know that’s easily done). So, I Googled his name and found your site. Glad I did. Thanks for the helpful tip.

    Sincerely,
    Ellen

  2. David Gibson
    Aug 24th 2007

    I received the same message via my online contact form. It was signed Mine was signed Ron Carter, Exec VP. Maybe they have a ‘bot that can automatically fill in inquiry forms?

    By way of reply I sent a link to your blog. :-)

  3. Chuck Nusbaum
    Aug 27th 2007

    The president of a club I belong to, whose site we host and I act as webmaster for(www.FlaglerGunClub.com) also received an email from Mr. Stone. It seems that Mr. Stone is also president of “National Positions” as well as “NetSucessUSA”.

    As to what to do about them? Well they are in California, so maybe pray that one of the fault lines goes through their building and is active soon. Tar and feathers is also a good solution. Maybe figure out how Adam and Jamey of Mythbusters could do an episode on “I can make your site # one on all the search engines”, which seems to be the myth Mr. Stone and company are promulgating. They do like to blow things up on that show.

  4. Scott Van Achte
    Jun 12th 2008

    I receive SPAM from SEO companies quite often and find it equally amusing. I had one such email from “Neal Stone” today, this time their company name appears to be “Profitable Internet Marketing” with different contact info than above. Same name, Same email, different company info. I find it interesting that after a year they are still using the same sales pitch.

    Any reputable SEO should have something positive about them in the Top 10. (Found this post by Googling “Neal Stone”.) Its great that “Neal Stone” has a bunch of articles and posts about his spamming habits (If this is even his real name, which I doubt).

  5. Rick N.
    Sep 19th 2009

    I just received an email through my contact me page on my website also. Seems that Neal has offices in New York also. It doesn’t really bother me to get a solicitation like that through my contact page if it’s something I might be interested in and it’s from a person. The problem for me is that after searching the name, you get the feeling they aren’t legit because of the different company names, CEO names, company locations, etc. Feels like more of a scam from a bot than legit business to me.

    First Name: Neal
    Last Name: Stone
    Email Address: @@@@@@@@@###@gmail.com
    Address: 224 Lawrence Road
    City: New York
    State: NY
    Zip Code: 11111
    Comments: Internet Marketing Services

  6. Brian Ratzker
    Sep 29th 2009

    Unfortunately, that is what happens when you outsource to foreigners. They email spam all over the place and don’t care who they are sending emails to. Google and Matt Cutts get these emails all the time too.

  7. Travis Gutierrez - Search Engine Optimization Services Specialist
    Oct 9th 2009

    E-mail spammers and (my least favorite) black-hat SEO cheaters not only make it difficult for search engines to find and rank the content of the useful information on the internet, but they give online marketing a name. I will admit, being a long time Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Services Specialist for over 5 years….I’m a strong believer that spammers and seo black-hat cheaters will always be around…..but come on “NetSuccessUSA” that just WREAKS of a scamming, spamming, fast/quick fix failure. I am glad that there are many serious Internet Advertising/Marketing businesses and freelancers out there that help bring a quality name to the industry.

    - Travis Gutierrez – SEO Services Specialist
    Phoenix Small Business Solutions

  8. Mike Wood
    Nov 12th 2009

    Black hat SEO’s are constantly struggling to keep up with new technology. Things like keyword stuffing and link spamming aren’t effective anymore. As search engine’s advance, black hat techniques will always become obsolete. They will always be around and find new techniques but us white hat marketers will always be ahead of the curve.

  9. Delwin
    Jan 12th 2010

    NetSuccessUSA now calls itself “National Positions”. They’ve been spamming my contact forms and those of my web design clients for about three months. I get about three to four a week now.

    I actually replied to one of their inquiries via their GMAIL account and got a response today from another non-GMAIL account. They are using various GMAIL accounts to carry out their form spam campaign. The GMAIL accounts are typically different each time I get spammed but it’s always an identical message.

    I reported the last email address to Google and everyone else receiving their form spam should do the same.

  10. Delwin
    Jan 12th 2010

    I forgot to mention that the contact form submissions they send do not list a company name. I only found out who they were after I replied to one of their SPAM form submissions. Someone from National Positions emailed the response to me, and that person did not have a GMAIL address.

  1. June 15th 2007

    PlugIM.com

  2. June 15th 2007

    Dear Neal Stone, SEO Spammer « John Herren’s Blog


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