Rather than list an email address, I use a contact form on my web site. This (usually) has the effect of cutting down on spam I receive. However it seems there’s an army non-native English speakers employed simply to send the stuff via people’s contact forms.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “Um, Tom…Don’t you do that sometimes?”
The answer is yes, but with a difference. It’s a company I have a prior business relationship with, AND I include an address to my shop.
But more often than not, this is what I receive:
Dear site owner We are interested to increase traffic to your website,please get back to us in order to discuss the possibility in further detail. Thanks
Now, here’s the thing. You’ll notice there’s no business name here. No site to visit. No phone number to call. Instead they want me to return their email. The messages aren’t coming from info@SEOWizards.com either. They’re coming from addresses such as,
- kittyabraham07@hotmail.com
- jimgonzalez77@gmail.com
- martin.babcock5@gmail.com
just to shame a few.
So, what they expect is that not only will I write back to some random person who contacted me out of the blue and not only do business with them, but also to send them my email so they can sell that to other spammers.
I’m tempted to set up a fake gmail address to write back with myself and see if I can get them to pay a ‘partnership’ fee.
Idiots.