This one really steams my biscuits, and it does it on two levels. Firstly on the tactics, and then the content…
The Tactics:
I received an envelope in the mail with a notice that seemed to be some sort of invoice. As you can see in the images below, the intent here is to fool the reader into thinking that this IS, in fact, an invoice that needs to be paid. These jokers are not the only ones I’ve seen doing this, nor are they the most talented at it so be on the lookout.
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Upon further inspection, it turns out that this is not actually an invoice, but rather a solicitation for their “website listing service.” Of all the dishonest tactics, this has to be near the top. Intentionally trying to fool someone into paying what they think is a bill…
The Content:
“Website listing service”…Really?! If the whole strategy hadn’t gotten me riled up, this certainly put me over the edge. They are yet another shady company trying to prey on the uninformed. Let’s be abundantly clear here…there’s absolutely NO reason why you should ever have to “submit” your website to a search engine.
Think about it for a second. If the search engines relied on people submitting their content to them, what good would they be? They would have 99% garbage from pinheads like these Web Listings Inc. people and 1% valid content from the rest of us.
The search engines rely solely on their spiders (aka “bots,” “crawlers”) to follow link after link out on the Web in order to find content. Google and Yahoo do provide a place where you can request that they crawl your site, but the professionals all agree that these services are of zero value.
Whatever you do, just avoid these Web Listings Inc. people. They’re bad news.