Hey Keyword Placement Inc, Key Placement SEO, ClearPathTraffic - Please Stop Sending SPAM
February 26th, 2009This seems to be the month for search engine related spam emails. One of my clients just forwarded this one to me, and it’s unique in that their website doesn’t function at all. While the email does have a domain based email address, I found it odd they didn’t list their website in their signature. Read on to find out why.
Here’s the email my client received:
Subject: your website
From: “Jason Adams” <[email protected]>
We can put your site at the top of a search engines listings. If this is something you might be interested in, send me a reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with some options.Sincerely,
Jason Adams
Director of Marketing
Keyword Placement Inc.
But when you go to their website, you see this:
A suggestion to folks sending out spam from a website domain: It’s probably a good idea to actually have a website up and running at your domain before you send out your spam. Having an error message like this doesn’t look good.
It’s also important to note that the client who received this email is already at the very top of the search engines for her targeted keywords - which is probably how the spammer got her email address in the first place. Ironic, isn’t it? The penalty for being ranked well is getting spam asking you to hire people who can help you rank well. 
And here’s a nice bit of information: This email has been sent out with many different names, as you can see form this link to the Cedar Hill Community Blog, which has apparently been collecting spam. It’s been sent out from “Chris Thomas PowerPoint SEO” and “Mike Taylor Placement Technologies“. This link to the J-Town Traffic Watch has these names and “Linda Mancini“.
UPDATE: Wow, they’re busy sending out spam today. Two more have arrived to my clients:
From: “Mike Lewis” <[email protected]>
We can put your site at the top of a search engines listings. If this is something you might be interested in, send me a reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with some options.
Sincerely,
Mike Lewis
Director of Marketing
Keyword Placement Inc.———————————-
(Note from Jill, keyplacementseo.com actually has a working website, perhaps this is the actual company that’s sending out all the spam today)
———————-
Subject: your website
From: “Paula Reynolds” <[email protected]>We can put your site at the top of a search engines listings. If this is something you might be interested in, send me a reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with some options.
Sincerely,
Paula Reynolds
—————
(Note from Jill, clearpathtraffic.com redirects to http://bbs.100te.cn/newstyle/zantingtz/1.htm and that appears to be in Chinese? And how come Mike and Jason get to be “Director of Marketing” while poor Paula Reynolds has no title. How unfair!)
Update: 4/20/09 from one of my clients, another clearpathtraffic spam:
Subject: your website
If you’re interested in showing up as a first page result for more search
terms on google and yahoo, reply back with all addresses you’re looking to
promote and the best number to contact you with details.Sincerely,
Linda Harrington
Note, the return email is to [email protected], but no other company name or contact info is mentioned. ClearPathTraffic.com is still showing a bunch of Chinese characters on it. And looking at the Whois for ClearPathTraffic.com, I find this additional evidence they are in China:
JillDomain Name : clearpathtraffic.com
PunnyCode : clearpathtraffic.com
Registrant:
Organization : LiFeng
Name : LiFeng
Address : ChengDuDaShiJie246Hao
City : ChengDu
Province/State : SiChuan
Country : CN
Postal Code : 610041
--------------
J. Olkoski
Aldebaran Web Design, Seattle
Jill Olkoski has a BS in Engineering, a BS in Computer Science and an MA in Clinical Psychology. She delights in using her advanced technical, psychological and interpersonal skills to help small business owners develop cost-effective and successful websites.
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March 3rd, 2009 at 10:38 am
Thanks for clearing this mystery up. When I received an email from Keyword Placement Inc, I thought –huh? My website already ranks high in SEO, so what the..? I also couldn’t find their physical address, not a good sign.
Best, Catlin
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Hi Catlin,
It’s funny isn’t it, they target folks who already have good SEO - otherwise they wouldn’t find us! Glad to be of help.
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Jill,
I did a website “whois” search and this is what turned up.
http://www.whois.net/whois_newdg2.cgi?d=keyphraseplacement&tld=com
Only registered in January 2009.
Check out their contact address and phone numbers?
Gerry
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Hi Gerry,
Holy cow! Wow, that’s a bunch of junk.
Here’s what Gerry found was listed in the public records for the owner of “keyphraseplacement.com” as of today 3/3/09.
That’s a whole lot of bogus info. Oddly, I looked up sv-luka.org, and it was a St. Luke’s Orthodox Mission website. Strange.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I, too, am tired of these emails. Thanks to you, when searching Google for the name, position and company of these people, your article is the first result. So, I sent Mike a link to lmgtfy.com that will show him this article - funny, but now I have lost yet another 10 minutes to these time wasting idiots.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Mike+Lewis%2C+Director+of+Marketing%2C+Keyword+Placement+Inc.&l=1
March 12th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Paula the lousy spammer is at it again! There is no lower form of life out there…lol
“We can put your site at the top of a search engines listings. If this is something you might be interested in, send me a reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with options.
Sincerely,
Paula Reynolds”
March 13th, 2009 at 9:45 am
My email below, that was rejected for whatever reason when I tried to reply to Paula’s same email that is going around stating that she can “put your (our) site at the top of a search engines listings” …..
Hello Paula,
Before we spend money on any advertising we do our homework and this is what we found. You did not provide us with anything so that we may research your company?
http://aldebaranwebdesign.com/blog/jason-adams-director-of-marketing-keyword-placement-inc/
We understand that you like everyone of us are trying to drum up business, however if we are to pay to advertise we will definately make sure that it will be well worth the money.
When I said we like everyone else is trying to drum up business….
We at Busy Legs Bouncers do not want to be in the same catagory as “clearpathtraffic.com” or “keyphraseplacement”.com or whoever this so called company is. We only drum up business with the utmost quality in customer service and our products. We do not try and scam our customers!
The only reason I am taking the time out of my busy day to write this is because I want to make sure others do not get scammed by this company.
Thank you Aldebaran Web Design because of this link page we were able to make sure not to use this company that claims to do what they say they can do.
Best regards,
Lorraine
March 26th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Ugh. Same here, except my email was from a Tracey.
—- Original Message —-
From: “Tracy Phillips”
Subject: your website
We can put your site at the top of a search engines listings. If this is something you might be interested in, send me a reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with some options.
Sincerely,
Tracy Phillips
———————————-
Came to all the same conclusions as you guys.
If they were THAT good at SEO and SEM they would not need to find us, people would easily find THEM.
And if their idea of SEO/SEM or even marketing in general is a brusque email with a Subject reading “your website” then I fear to place my pages into the hands of people who would choose a similarly irrelevant page Title….
April 16th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Funny that if you type in “clear pathtraffic” it doesn’t show up anywhere in the yahoo search results. They can’t even place or optimize themselves, how can they help me?
April 28th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
They just hit me as well.
“If you’re interested in showing up as a first page result for more search terms on google and yahoo, reply back with all addresses you’re looking to promote and the best number to contact you with details.
Sincerely,
Linda Harrington
[email protected]”
It went straight to junk mail in my outlook, which is good but I wish outlook had a report spam option.
I googled their site and your site is numero uno. On the bright side look who’s reaping all the benefits of these spammers. Brilliant!
Best of luck to you.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for leaving such a wonderful comment!
Yes, getting visitors to my blog, like you, is a little silver lining in the big dark spam cloud. And getting to hear others complain is nice too. Misery loves company