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Domain Registration Scam Emails on the Rise Again

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen this tired old domain scam, but thought I would warn people just in case. To renew your domain names, go to where you registered them and do so at their website. Do not respond to emails from companies you never heard of. If you do as the following email says, yes, you will get your domain registered again, but it will be moved to an disreputable and unethical company who may cause your website to be down or worse, taken away altogether.

Here is a sample of how one of the emails you receive might look

Since they have a disclaimer in their email, I’ll add mine, too. I am in no way saying that the company in this email is a scammer. I’m just saying that the unsolicited email I received from them looks almost identical to how the domain registration scammers operate.

Notice how there is no letterhead?  Nothing at the top to identify who they are? In the fine print at the bottom where they say they are not liable for anyting, they call themselves DS, so I assume that means Domain Service or something, which it does say Domain Service Notice. But real registrars, like GoDaddy for example, send you an email and you know it’s from them because they have GoDaddy all over it.

It’s a shame that these days, companies will tell you that this is just marketing and they have a disclaimer and all. However, it is misleading to people who do not understand the web all that well or even to someone who is just in a hurry and thinks this is a legitimate email from their chosen domain registrar.

Their disclaimer makes them barely legal. It should be illegal as a deceptive advertisement, but the days of Ralph Nader are over. The FTC and FCC will allow companies to say pretty much anything they want now. But that’s politics. I just want people to be aware of what they are getting into if they respond to emails like this one.

My version of their disclaimer;

By reading this post, you agree not to hold me or my company liable for any part. Note that THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is a blog post.  You are under no obligation to read it. The information in this post contains confidential and/or legally privileged information from my email.  This information is intended for all my readers who might be mislead by unscrupulous domain name registrars. There is no pre-existing relationship between the domain mentioned above and  DS, whoever they are.  This blog post is not in any part associated with a recommendation for services provided by domain name registration scammers for domain registration.  Search engine submission is an optional service that you can use as a part of your website optimization and alone may not increase the traffic to your site.  If you do not wish to receive further updates from my blog stop reading it.  If you are one of my readers, you are hereby notified that disclosure of, linking to, adding it to your Facebook Page or sharing it on Twitter, strictly recommended.  * 100% satisfaction guaranteed, you may share this post as often as you like for 30 days and beyond.

SEO Starter Guide from Google

Some people don’t understand what is involved in doing organic SEO for a website. I believe clients should understand the process so they can appreciate the work that goes into it and so they know what they are paying for and what it should look like when we are done.

Image via CrunchBase

Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide from Google

Google put this document online a long time back, but I’m sure there are a lot of people who have never read it. For a free consultation on how we apply these SEO techniques for your website, call Curved Marketing at 512-322-9566.

Overdeveloped Websites – Are you guilty of this mistake?

Over time, has your website started loading slower? You need to empty your browser’s cache to see how fast your website loads. If it is saved in your cache, it loads faster for you than for your first-time visitors. How fast your website loads affects how well you rank in search engines and most importantly, it affects your sales. People will not wait for your website to load no matter how important you think your information and products are to them.

As you develop your website, you add a new graphic here, an image there, maybe a video, a new cool snippet of javascript, maybe a little flash and pretty soon, you have created a slow-loading website one little piece at a time.

It’s easy to get into adding a little bit to your site frequently. You find cool new things you want to share with users. Those little facebook, google plus and twitter icons and plugins for your blog, a cool new flash header you’re sure your visitors will just love and of course you have to add that new video you just made.

Adding freash content to your website is a great way to improve your rankings in the search engine. But add that new stuff on new pages you add to the website. Don’t keep over-developing your home page or any other page. If you slow down your website, your rankings will suffer.

Take a fresh look at your website. Look at each item. Ask yourself, “Do I really need this here?” and “Is the time it takes to download this worth it if it is going to affect my SEO efforts?” Trim the fat and you’ll be much better off.

There are some really big companies online that could use this lesson. Those slow-loading flash ads on some news sites, sports sites, gaming sites and others are annoying to users. Those ads that expand when you mouse over them might look cool, but they are annoying to your users and they slow your website down.

Most importantly, they do not convert any better than an adsense text ad that loads really fast. I’m not saying start promoting adsense instead of the ads. But use the fastest loading ad possible, not the one you think looks really cool. Your conversion rate will actually improve.

Related articles

• Web design tips – things to avoid (marketing.yell.com)
• Flash and SEO: why it’s best to keep it simple (marketing.yell.com)