It always fascinates me when people try to scam a specialist SEO company with a black hat SEO trick. It’s almost as if they don’t know who we are and don’t understand SEO at all.
On reflection, I’m pretty sure they don’t.
If they did, they wouldn’t be trying this black hat tactic as it is bound to fail, despite being very clever.
Last week, I received the following email in my personal inbox, threatening me with legal action if I didn’t immediately add a backlink from the Aqueous Digital website to a random website in Dubai. Here’s what they wrote:
DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice
Dear owner of https://aqueous-digital.co.uk/articles/is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-google-partner-programme/,
We’re reaching out on behalf of the Intellectual Property division of
a notable entity, in relation to an image connected to our client Dubai
SIM Cards.
Image Reference: https://i.imgur.com/Cb0iGh8.jpg
Image Placement: https://aqueous-digital.co.uk/articles/is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-google-partner-programme/
We’ve observed the display of the image on your site. We need you to
add a credit to our client immediately. A visible and clickable link to
dubaisims.com is required, placed either below the image or in the
page’s footer. This should be addressed in the next five business days.
We’re sure you realize the urgency of this request. Kindly understand
that simply removing the image does not conclude the matter. Should we not
see appropriate action within the given timeframe, we nned to activate
the case No. 74332 and take action as outlined in DMCA Section 512(c).
For your convenience, past usage records can be reviewed using the
Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org, a recognized digital archive.
Think of this as formal communication. We value your swift action and
your cooperation.
Kindly communicate in English.
Regards
Lea Davis
Trademark Attorney
Now, having been caught out over a decade ago, when one of my developer team copied a Getty images protected image onto a new website without paying for it (that was an expensive lesson to learn), we have a very strict policy in the business. Either use a verified non copyright image or pay for it.
For customer websites we always pay for images, but for our own blog posts we are quite happy to use sites such as Pexels or Pixabay.
I was convinced, therefore, that there was no way we could have infringed anyone’s copyright.
And I was right.
It didn’t take much searching to establish that the image in question was not only a non-copyright image, but that it had been used extensively all over the internet since 2022.
The rather nifty new Google Lens tool identified in seconds that the image is in use on 131 other websites, as well as our own.
A quick click through to the Evening Standard showed that the image was indeed from Pixabay and as such, a non-copyright image.
Moreover, when we checked our Pixabay account we can see that we downloaded it in 2022 and it has had over 180,000 downloads. Which might explain why it’s such an easy target for these scammers.
I was now intrigued, who was ‘Lea Davis’, apparently a trademark attorney, and why would she (sic) “nned to activate the case No. 74332 and take action as outlined in DMCA Section 512(c).”
Starting with the firm she works for, I searched for cl-offices.biz to see what was there. Sure enough, a legal looking website is currently on that domain and on the home page, there’s a photo of Lea.
Amazing – I’m supposed to think she’s real.
Apart from a couple of tiny giveaways…
First, their domain is so new that Archive.org, which they recommend we use to check our ‘infringement’, doesn’t have them in its record.
Second, Google can find no signs of an exact match for ‘Lea Davis Trademark Attorney’, despite extensive searches. Finally, thanks to the very clever people at www.sightengine.com, it seems Lea is a figment of someone’s imagination.
If that wasn’t enough, the domain name from which they ostensibly trade, was registered less than three months ago.
Simple checks on things like their blog posts (thanks https://quillbot.com) show that this is a completely fictitious firm.
Finally, convinced beyond any doubt that this is a scam, we come to the target of this sham link building scheme, dubaisims.com.
These guys have been around since 2023 and appear to be a genuine website, but a simple WHOIS check reveals something fascinating; they are using the same server as Citi Legal.
What are the chances?
They are both on the same shared server with Name Cheap on the same IP address of 156.154.132.200. Along with at least another 107 other websites
On top of that, they simply don’t care that this is a link building scam as the disclaimer at the bottom of the website makes it clear that it’s a disposable affiliate website and not one that people should be using.
At this point, I thought that I’d got to the bottom of the scam but a quick check of their most recent backlinks shows that they are trying this scam with multiple images.
This image of a standard inhaler, is currently available to buy on several reputable image websites:
Their scam, however, has meant that Health Insider has taken the bait and credited them on an image that simply isn’t theirs.
In fact, the more I look at this, the more images they are claiming to own. On almost every new backlink they have received in the past two weeks, the anchor text is a credit for an image on which they don’t own the copyright.
In fact, in just the last 7 days they have accumulated over 17 native links, anchored just on their domain name, to their website.
The bottom line is that this is a scam. Pure and simple. These people are using a nasty email, threatening legal action, to compel website owners to incorrectly credit their website with a backlink.
And it’s working.
Their backlink profile is increasing significantly but the good news is that, as my mum used to say, ‘cheats never prosper’. According to Ahrefs, their traffic has fallen off a cliff, oddly enough coinciding with Google’s March ‘spam update’.
Google are clear about this type of activity; it is expressly forbidden in their Webmaster Guidelines. In fact pretty much all of the backlinks pointing to this site are in one way or another, proscribed by Google, all of which goes to explain why their traffic has fallen off a cliff.
The takeaway from this, therefore, is that if you receive an email from someone threatening legal action, just do a few simple checks first. It’s not hard to establish that this is a scam and when you spot it, you can feel good about the fact that you are preventing dishonest people from scamming consumers out of their hard-earned cash.
P.S. – if you really want to gain genuine backlinks then how about creating a useful resource which people can use to help them, like all these wonderful websites which were essential in helping me create this blog. Now that’s a genuine backlink…
