lørdag 14. april 2012

Liv Hansen in NorwegianSEO - SEO Scam

Got this email in my spam folder, but figured many people might fall for it:

"Hei,

Jeg benytter denne muligheten til å introdusere meg selv, navnet mitt er Liv Hansen,
veldig fint å møte deg. Jeg jobber som en SEO manager for Norwegian SEO.

Jeg gjennomfører en undersøkelse for en av mine partnere og mens jeg gjorde det
la jeg merke til [my domain name] og jeg har noen interessante forslag til deg
og jeg vil gjerne fortelle deg mer om dem.

Som en SEO ekspert driver jeg kvalitetssider som kan
matche og hjelpe siden din til å få høyere rangering og trafikk.

Hvis du er interessert, vil jeg gjerne sende deg mer informasjon
og alle detaljene som trengs for å gjøre det.

Tusen takk,

Liv Hansen
norwegianseo.com"

The signs


  1. Strange Norwegian phrasing making me believe that the email has been translated from English. The beginning gives it away "I'm taking the opportunity to introduce myself, my name is Liv Hansen, very nice to meet you". Not many Norwegians write like this (in Norwegian that is)
  2. She's telling me about how she was doing some research for one of her customers and stumbling over my web site. Sounds fishy. 
  3. She gives me very little information in the email.
  4. The domain was registered 9 days before I got the email. Very common for frauds as they don't usually have long life spans.
  5. The domain name info is incorrect. It refers to the address "Spiralen 160", but searching on this address on Google or Yellow Pages gives me no results. 
  6. Her website, http://www.norwegianseo.com has very little content, in fact it only has ONE page and none of what might look like links are links. There are no links on the page (except for a link back to the same page)
  7. On the page, they say: "Svært få kan matche Interonlineseo når det gjelder ekspertise og erfaring", meaning "Very few can match InterOnlineSEO when it comes to expertise and experience". Oh, I thought this was "NorwegianSEO", not "InterOnlineSEO". Perhaps InterOnlineSEO was the previous scam they were running?
  8. When checking InterOnlineSEO.com I see that the domain name has been registered at the same registrar. Very likely the same owner, just that the info is fake. This time it's registered by a German person.
  9. The layout of InterOnlineSEO.com is pretty much the same as NorwegianSEO.com
  10. InterOnlineSEO.com doesn't mention InterOnlineSEO in their description. Instead they refer to "BangOnSEO". How can they be so sloppy?
  11. BangOnSEO.com is registered at the same registrar as the other two domains. The web site also have no links and only contains one page. Compared to the other two, this page actually refers to itself when talking about how they can't be matched on expertise and experience.
  12. "Liv Hansen" also links to her LinkedIn profile. If she's on LinkedIn, she must be real, right? Well, she  has 0 connections. Searching for her previous companies ExpertsNO and AdsNO I didn't find much. 
  13. There is also no company called "NorwegianSEO" in the norwegian company register. 
  14. If they are so good at SEO, they should have more than one page on their web site. Many pages equals better content equals better ranking. The answer is that they don't bother, cause those who are about to send them money has no knowledge of SEO and will not pay attention to it. 
  15. I spent less than 30 minutes digging all this up AND write this blog post. If you spend more time, you'll find more. 

What is the scam about?

I don't know, but here's my guess: You will have to transfer an advance to a bank account far away for services you're about to receive. Will you get them? Nope. 

Need help with your SEO?

Assuming you live in for example London, how about searching for one of the following:
- search engine optimization london
- seo london
- seo companies london

....and see who has done the best SEO for their own SEO company?

Good luck

Update

I answered "Liv Hansen" and told "her" that I didn't know what SEO was. I got a response within an hour or so. While they are lying about who they are, they may not be interested in your money after all. They want you to link to their casino affiliate web site. For them, this will be enormous help, because they might be able to get tons of links back from various companies. They offer 3 links back to your site, from a site they call PowerYourDesign.com - So while they'll end up with perhaps hundreds or thousands of links from different web sites, you get 3 links from one web site. This helps them a lot, but it doesn't do much good for you. 

Judging by their approach, I would be hesitant about using their services. I would also not want links to casino affiliate web sites on my company web site. 

I would also be concerned about doing business with their related companies like: HostGator.com and EsCasinoBonus.com as they seem to be involved. 




16 kommentarer:

  1. Hello!
    I also get that mail yesterday, and I wonder if it was Spam or not, because it don’t came into the spam folder.
    So I search a bit on the internet to find it out and I found this blog post, thanks : D

    Can I take some of the info you have here and, write it on my Norwegian blog, if I link to this in the post?

    SvarSlett
  2. Hi, feel free to use. A back-link/reference would be nice though :)

    SvarSlett
  3. Hi Anduuh,
    i just became aware of this blogpost, You´ve done even more extensive research thant myself, it seems. Main difference. my blogpost is in Norwegian. http://xlii.no/2012/04/23/seo-bloff-8/

    SvarSlett
  4. Hi Henning. Thanks for sharing :)

    SvarSlett
  5. Just got the same mail myself><
    Did a quick search on google, and your page came up. Now I can rest assured that there is no point in answering them, haha.. Thanks for the info;)!

    SvarSlett
  6. Hi, I also got this email. Thanks for sharing.

    SvarSlett
  7. Denne kommentaren har blitt fjernet av en bloggadministrator.

    SvarSlett
  8. Denne kommentaren har blitt fjernet av en bloggadministrator.

    SvarSlett
  9. Hey. Thanks for posting.
    I got an email from this "Liv Hansen" with a different offer. Posting it here to show what new methods are being used. ;-)

    ---
    "
    Kjære Webmaster,


    Som sideoperatør hos Norwegianseo.com, vil jeg gjerne invitere deg til å utveksle linker med oss.
    Hele uken vil vi gjennomføre en unik linkutveksling som vil fokusere på ekte linker med ekte trafikk fra ekte sider med ekte innhold!


    Hvorfor utveksle linker med oss?


    A. Det er helt gratis.
    B. Vi har en ekstremt høy Alexa trafikkranking sammenlignet med andre SEO nettsider.
    C. Vi har Googles topp-posisjoner for ulike emner.
    D. Vi har mye innhold og er stolte av det!


    Jeg vil gjerne holde denne linkutvekslingen så relevant som mulig for din side(er) også,
    det er derfor jeg tilbyr et utvalg av indre sider du kan linke til og husk,
    sider som sender gode, beslektede linker vil motta den samme behandlingen når det gjelder kvalitet og relevans.


    Vennligst fortell meg hvilken type linkutveksling som er ideell for [my site]. Jeg kan tilby deg:
    Treveis/Indirekte utvekslinger
    Linker fra beslektede sider innen innhold
    Høy PR og/eller innholdsbacklinker
    Ethvert annet forslag du måtte ha...


    Alt avhenger av hva du har å tilby. Vi lover en gratis, rettferdig og ærlig utvekling med hver av våre deltakere.
    Liv Hansen - Norwegianseo.com "
    ---

    I checked with Alexa traffic ranking and norwegianseo.no doesn't have any rank.
    The email got my attention because the lanugage seems legit and real.

    Still a scam though.

    SvarSlett
  10. Just sharing some info about the site.
    YES it`s a SCAM and here is her info ;)


    Domain Name: NORWEGIANSEO.COM
    Registrar: MONIKER

    Administrative Contact [3819024]:
    Liv Hansen
    Spiralen 160
    OSLO
    OSLO
    1170
    NO
    Phone: +47.91515842

    Billing Contact [3819024]:
    Liv Hansen
    Spiralen 160
    OSLO
    OSLO
    1170
    NO
    Phone: +47.91515842

    Domain servers in listed order:

    NS1.MONIKERDNS.NET 207.189.109.115
    NS2.MONIKERDNS.NET 63.149.176.23
    NS3.MONIKERDNS.NET 207.189.109.116
    NS4.MONIKERDNS.NET 63.149.176.24

    Record created on: 2012-04-05 04:26:46.0
    Database last updated on: 2013-02-18 16:19:12.657
    Domain Expires on: 2013-04-05 04:26:47.0

    SvarSlett
  11. I think she is talking about link exchange

    SvarSlett
  12. Thank you soo much, this helped me a lot. I just got the same e-post, but they linked my blog in it, so i thought it was a sponsor. I did understand quite little, and I had never heard of that page before, so I googled it - and this came up. Thanks a lot, again!

    SvarSlett
  13. Lih Hansen has changed name, "she" is now called Frida Hansen. I got mail from her this week with the same offer:
    "....
    Det jeg tilbyr er en gratis, rettferdig og fordelaktig avtale om utveksling av en
    backlink.

    Hos norwegianseo.com finner du alt fra nybegynnerguider
    til mer avanserte emner som vil resultere i ekte trafikk til siden din også.
    Alt dette er helt gratis.
    ..."

    SvarSlett

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