The sad truth is that the internet is loaded with scam artists of every shape and size. Every day, there's plenty of possible ways to trick you into spending money that you don't need to spend.I hope that this Daily Nugget will help some of you from being tricked by one of the latest unnecessary domain name offers.
In my daily job, I'm responsible for managing several hundred domain names. For tech reasons, I'm listed as a contact person on most of those domain names; and as part of the service my company provides, we get domain name renewal notices and renew the domain on behalf of our customers.
Unfortunately, unless you pay an extra privacy fee, all the contact information for every domain name is a matter of public record. Anyone can access and compile a marketing list from these public records. This information clearly includes your name, address, phone number, and email address.
Through the years, there have been several different types of domain name scams by companies that scraped that public information. Many people fell for those scams, and it seems like this is actually my 3rd Nugget on the topic. My previous ones are here and here.
Lately, I've been getting several solicitations from a few email addresses tying to sell me exact match domain names. The emails are trying to convince me to spend money on an extra domain name that probably won't be worth it. In fact take a look at this previous nugget to see why exact match domain names are not worth your money.
I'm showing you 4 permutations of the emails I keep getting. I believe they are coming from the same company because they always have the same format as one of these examples, and the subject line usually catches my attention because it has one of my managing domain names in it.
Here are the example spammy type solicitations:
Hi,
I am promoting the sale of sellscrapgoldonline.com. Being the
exact keyword match of the search terms, it will provide a SEO
boost for your company in this market (high CPC, appraisal, and
monthly searches). Not to mention that acquiring it will protect your
branding and increase organic leads, ultimately saving you money
on advertising costs.
I am presenting this premium domain name to several specific
companies in this niche starting today for a one time fee of just
$399, and it will go to the first who replies.
I thought you would be interested since you own
{domain-hidden}.com.
Thank you,
Lindsay Williams, URL Agent
Team Brokerage, LLC.
Example 2:
Hey,
We intend to let go of ladieswristwatches.net.
Would you be interested to acquire it?
Regards,
Eric
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind
don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch
Example 3:
Hi,
Would you buy cashgold.net at £147?
Clark
"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to
say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant."
- Max Depree
Example 4:
Hello,
I noticed that that you own {domain-hidden}.com, which relates to
a domain name that I am currently offering for sale, i.e. jewellery.us
Should your business have interest in acquiring this domain name;
please feel free to contact me.
This domain name can be used to grow your business and increase
visibility; it may also help drive organic traffic directly to your current
site.
If you are not interested, I understand and apologize for the
inconvenience.
Best regards,
Gideon Stander
As you can see, Examples 2 and 3 have a similar format with a famous quote as part of the signature. The format of these emails is rather innocuous which is why these are not being tagged or filtered as spam.
The subject of the email has always been either the domain name they are trying to sell me, or the domain name they scraped to get my email information. Either way, it usually gets my attention because it looks simple, and legitimate.
Additionally, and many people put quotes in the signatures of their emails so this makes the emails look legitimate.
The emails do not have links or phone numbers, and I assume they expect you to reply if you are interested in the domain.
The bottom line of today's Nugget is to just make you aware of this latest method to unnecessarily spend money. These are all solicitations for exact match domain names, which really are worthless even thought they put trumped up values on them.
