People think bloggers are stupid
How many emails do you get from people pitching their products or websites to you? If you’re anything like me then this is a daily occurance. I even get emails asking me to exchange links because my readers apparently would love to hear about payday loans, real estate and other often spammed subjects.
The thing that really makes me laugh is when people send emails to hundreds of blogs they find on a list and pretend that they are big fans of the blog. Take a look at the screenshot below from just one of these lists.
I track the source of all my contact form submissions using this WordPress contact form plugin and it’s quite easy to see that real enquiries come from google.com/reader whereas spam ones come from some list of blogs that I’ve been featured on.
Of course sometimes legitimate readers find it easier to go down the list and email all the blogs rather than using their reader and that’s totally fine. Legitimate readers usually start their email saying “Hi Patrick” rather than the “Dear Webmaster” that most of the others do.
It constantly amazes me that companies assume that I have been able to build a good business and a popular blog without having the sense to spot these things.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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I think all such mails are automated.
If so then the referrer wouldn’t show up.
They’re playing the numbers game like most spammers do. Even if most bloggers aren’t stupid, they think that a few may be and that’s why they do it.
I get the exact same thing all the time – most of them from 45n5′s top list as well.
Either something like, “I am a huge fan of your blog and the excellent content it produces. I am wondering if you would like a link exchange that would benefit both you and your readers”, OR something like, “I’ve been a fan of your blog for a while now and thought I’d let you know about a great partnership opportunity where you can earn $6,200 in the first month by placing our link on your site, and $1,400 more every month after that.”
It’s ridiculous.
They are not interested in you, they are interested in the other people who don’t pay so close attention.