Hello there. I have been on your website a fair bit recently and thought I would email to let you know how much I find it highly entertaining and well presented. I also find some of the blog posts are very well written and quite interesting as well as useful. What I was wondering was, if I and my company would be able to buy a link on your site? We would offer yourselves a very fair price to you for a month’s worth. Our sites are very relevant to your site; Bingo, Poker, Casino…etc… I wish to hear from you whatever your decision maybe. Hopefully speak to you soon and keep up the fantastic work of your blog!

[name removed]
[company removed]
Contact Me On: [removed]

When looking at the above email, you may not think it worthy of Spam of the Week. It seems fairly harmless – a SEO company is trying to buy advertising on one of my sites to help improve the rankings of one of their clients’ sites. Seems good right? Well, not when you take into consideration that the site they are trying to buy advertising on is a Web directory that offers free links with no strings attached (though they do need to be approved). Also throw in the fact that they say they like my “blog” when (as I just mentioned) the site was not a blog but a directory. The guy even says the “blog posts are very well written and quite interesting as well as useful”. Quite a feat for a directory with no blog posts to be found.

The following spam was recently sent to nearly all of my websites with the same message but different subjects and contact info. I especially like how they emphasize their “white hat” services even though they are spamming the hell out of people. Oh, and if you want to pretend the email wasn’t an automated email (or a lazy copy-paste email), you should at least refer to the website you’re contacting rather than asking for that information in a reply. Also, it may help if you include at least some sort of company information – especially when each message comes from a different name and email address.

We would like to get your website on first page of Google. All of our processes use the most ethical “white hat” Search Engine Optimization techniques that will not get your website banned or penalized. Please reply and I would be happy to send you a proposal. In order for us to respond to your request for information, please include your company’s website address (mandatory) and or phone number.