This guy is using Alive Directory as bait to try and trick webmasters into giving him a backlink. I posted the email and a short rant on my blog here Yes, I already emailed Chris and made him aware of this.
that is pretty sad, seeing as alive is a paid directory and must be submitted before it gets added. QBC all over the place now a days. This is why so many new webmasters need to be careful.
I get this all the time. People email me and tell me that they added my site to some place where the site had already been added for many months. I think the best was when they spammed one of my sites saying that they put a link on their website and "their" website was MY DIRECTORY!! HAHA, IDIOT!!!!
Incredible! But I bet some people fall for it, especially in larger companies where more than one person may be involved in link building.
That is why I do n't have contact forms Also If they have to contact regarding link payment they can contact through paypal email address!
I think a great target for this type of scam is directories that have editors place links for free for authority sites. I don't see any way to prevent it from happening...
Not if they don't submit. 2 days ago I had a message via contact form that they tried to submit but got a 'you don't have access' page (is there a fix for this with phpld 3.1 as it's happened before?) I worked with them and they submitted and paid. I think a contact form is a must.
I get alot that try to use 3 way reciprical linking (which I don't use) wanting me to link either a porn site, a MFA site or somewhere that has my directory listed already when the site the are submitting is a pr 4 or pr 5
This is a VERY disturbing trend. Over the last month, I have received DOZENS of these bogus link exchange emails. Every one of them is from SEOs in India. These worthless scumbags are simply claiming to have given me a random link that I already acquired myself. I know my backlinks like the back of my hand, but I'm sure that many other Webmasters fall for it. I suggest that we make a running list of the IP addresses from which these ripoff emails originate so that people can block them if they choose.
There are wonderful people in India. No country has the monopoly of scumbags. Name a country and it has a few scumbags. So, let's not stick this guy's dishonest actions to a country. I'm from the EU and we also have a few scumbags here!
Will you PM me the IP addy just to match it with the site that have submitted a similar one few months back. Thanks
I agree with you, if it didn't work some of the time they would not do it. Sad but true There are always going to be people like this we just need to keep calling them out and make everyone else aware of them.
If you are going to accuse me of being racist, at least make sense. All I did was state facts. Fact #1: Every email is from an IP in India. Fact #2: Every email contains a traditional Indian name. Fact #3: The people who sent the emails are scumbags. I do an absurd amount of business with associates in India, so please don't make blanket assumptions.
Unfortunately, I haven't been keeping the emails or the IPs. If we were to start an official thread here at DP for the IPs, then I would certainly start maintaining a list of IPs from the new scam emails that I receive. I'm sure there will be more.
And strange to see that some people really fall for it... anyways what could be the solution of this?