The Fake Google PR Link Exchange Scam

January 24th, 2010 → 12:21 pm @ The Naming Dude

Beware of People Hawking Links Exchanges for Their High PR Websites

If you have any decent PR websites you’re bound to get one of these someday. The requests all follow the same pattern. The person claims to have a high PR (PageRank) site, usually PR5 ,and they want to do a link exchange with you. Your link will appear on their home page and they have another URL they want you to link to in exchange. Fair enough. This happens every day all over the world. Trouble is it’s all fake. The domain in question has usually just been registered, perhaps less than a month ago. It’s an established domain, but the current content and the registered owner is brand new. The Google PR toolbar does indeed show a PR of five (I use the free SearchsStatus extension for Firefox) but when you do a Google search using “info:mydomainname.com” Google shows information for a completely different page. It could be an older and irrelevant version of the site or even a completely different domain. The scams use one of two techniques.

Buying an Expired High PR Domain and Trading Links Before Google Wipes the Old PR Clean.

Here’s how this one works. You snatch up an expired PR5 website and quickly throw some more content on it. Usually the new content is designed to convince the targeted webmasters the site is highly relevant to their business but usually has no relationship to what the domain’s content was before. Then you contact a bunch of high PR websites and offer link exchanges before Google erases the old PR. If done quickly, you can secure a hundred or so good quality links to your targeted website while providing nearly useless links back in return. Since most webmasters won’t follow up later, they are never the wiser.

Hijack Another Site’s PR with 301 Redirects and Cloaking.

This one involves a form of cloaking where you trick the Google Toolbar into thinking it’s another site. You can learn more about faking Google PR here and here. So while you are looking at the domain in question, your toolbar is fetching PR results from a completely different domain. This is PR hijacking. Either way, both techniques are totally unethical, fraudulent, and considered 100% black hat. These aren’t honest mistakes. These are deliberate attempts to deceive. Below I’ve include a series of emails I received from these scumbags along with an explanation of what is really going on.

This first one is from “Ruby Hill” an alleged web marketing consultant (I also received two more requests for the same domain from “Abbie Barnes”) :

My name is Ruby Hill. I’ve just visited your website (domain name removed) and I was wondering if you’d be interested in exchanging links with my website. I can offer you a home page link back from my SEO Guide website wich is:

http://planshabitatservices.com/ with page rank 5

If you are interested, please add the following information to your website and kindly let me know when it’s ready. I’ll do the same for you in less than 24 hours, otherwise you can delete my link from your site.

Title: leaflets delivery
URL: http://www.frontdoormarketing.co.uk
Description: Front Door Marketing specialize in the distribution of
advertising material.

I hope you have a nice day and thank you for your time.

Best regards;

Ruby Hill
ruby.hill@planshabitatservices.com
Web Marketing Consultant

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A SPAM OR AUTOMATED EMAIL, IT’S ONLY A
REQUEST FOR A LINK EXCHANGE. YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS HAS NOT BEEN ADDED TO
ANY LISTS, AND YOU WILL NOT BE CONTACTED AGAIN.IF YOU’D LIKE TO MAKE
SURE WE DON’T CONTACT YOU AGAIN, PLEASE FILL IN THE FOLLOWING FORM:
HTTP://WWW.NOMOREMAILS.COM; OR WRITE AN EMAIL TO STOP@NOMOREMAILS.COM.
PLEASE ACCEPT OUR APOLOGIES FOR CONTACTING YOU.

This website is hijacking it’s PR from Websiteout.fr. When I did an “info:” search on Google it looked like this:

By searching with "info:mydomainname.com" you can find out if the site in question is real.

This next email is from “Ruby Palmer” an alledged web marketing consultant who amazingly uses the same email template and has nearly same first name as “Rudy Hill”. When I initially ran an “info:” search on Google it was also hijacking PR from the very same Websiteout.fr. However, Google now shows the correct site when using “info:” and the website is now showing it’s true PR of 2. In the meantime, “Ruby Palmer” was able to dupe over 100 websites into exchanging links with them. Shame on him or her.

Here’s the original email:

My name is Ruby Palmer. I’ve just visited your website (domain name removed) and I was wondering if you’d be interested in exchanging links with my website. I can offer you a Home Page link back from my Fashion and Clothing Guide website which is
http://www.cellsoflife.com with page rank 5

Title: Ecko Clothing
URL: http://www.yukka.co.uk/ECKO-mid-4.html
Description: The latest range of Ecko clothing available online from
Yukka.

I hope you have a nice day and thank you for your time.

Best regards;

Ruby Palmer
Web Marketing Consultant

This next one I unfortunately fell for. It was a lesson I won’t soon forget. I have since removed my links and told “Isabel Simpson” that I have done so. However the links from www.dezinaweb.com to my site are still live. This underscores the cut and run game these black hat marketers play. There is no long-term goal or brand assets to protect. It’s simply a plan to acquire as many links as possible through fraudulent means. The true PR of this website now is 1.

Here’s the original email:

Hi:

I’ve visited your website (domain name removed) and I was wondering if it would be possible to get a link to my partner’s website on it?

I’ll place a link back to you in this other website, your link will be placed exactly here:

http://www.dezinaweb.com/ (page rank 5) It’s a Web Design Guide

If you agree, then please link to me using these details:

Title: IT management London
URL: http://www.managednetworks.co.uk/
Description: UK support, IT management, and hosted desktop services.

Please don’t forget to send me the title of your website after you
place my link so I can do the same.

I´ll be waitng for your kind reply

Regards

Isabel Simpson
isabel.simpson@dezinaweb.com

Online Marketing Consultant

This is just a link exchange request, but if you feel uncomfortable
receiving these kind of requests, please let me know at
stop@nomoremails.com, or just register at www.nomoremails.com so we
avoid contacting you again. Thanks for your attention.

Buyer Beware

So be forewarned. Quality link exchanges are great, if they are real. Most unsolicited (meaning you’ve don’t know the person and have never advertised you’re interested in link exchanges) are probably requests to exchange links with worthless “links page” or are flat-out fraudulent. Do your homework. If the requester is honest and their offer legit, there’s no rush. If it isn’t, the extra time to reflect will only work to your advantage.

File Under: Fake Google PR Scam – Tips for Link Exchanges – Check Google PR

Hi,

I have visited your website  claytowne.com   and I was wondering if it
would be possible to get a link to my partner's website on it?

I'll place a link back to you in 2 of my Business and Marketing  Guide
website exactly here:

http://commerciallandconsultants.com/  with page rank 4
http://clcnm.org/  with page rank 4

If you agree, then please link to me using these details, I´ll place a
link back in less than 24 hours, otherwise you can delete my link from
your site:

Title: Online Market Research
URL: http://www.onlinemarketresearch.org.uk/
Description: DJS Research Ltd is a leading online market research
consultancy.

Please don't forget to send me the title of your website after you
place my link so I can do the same.

I’ll be waiitng for your kind reply

Regards
Megan Shaw
megan.shaw@commerciallandconsultants.com

Online Marketing Consultant

9 Comments → “The Fake Google PR Link Exchange Scam”

Chris Fryer

6 months ago

I have almost fallen for this scam myself. I knew there was something iffy about it, but I really didn’t know what was wrong exactly.

Anyone who owns a website needs to know about stuff like this, so thank you.

I’ve added your website to my blogroll by the way.
Chris Fryer´s last blog ..Is Rudd drunk at the wheel?

Reply
Ray

6 months ago

“http://www.pagerankpr.com/fake-rank-checker.php?u=www.microsoft.com” , doesnt seem to be true. It tells the same for any website i tried.

eg:

PageRank is NOT VALID for http://www.microsoft.com

Test URL Reported PageRank Status
http://www.microsoft.com NOT VALID

Reply
- The Naming Dude
  
  6 months ago
  
  Thanks Ray. I’ve removed that info. Much appreciated.
  
  Reply
Mike Andrew

6 months ago

Great article, I’ve had a number of these requests from the very names you have mentioned, the first I fell for, the others I checked out before agreeing and found the page rank fake as mentioned in your article. The lesson here is to really check these requests out before agreeing to a link exchange.

Reply
Brian

6 months ago

Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. You are welcome to the link, people scamming all the time can make the Internet a sad place and I find it refreshing when I come across people with integrity.

Reply
Stephen

5 months ago

Thanks for the research – a well written article.

Now also using the name “Isabelle Palmer” – and I guess thousands of other names. But pretty much the exact same template every time.

If it weren’t for the urls being set-up I would have thought it was an automatic program / virus.

The thing that first tipped me off when visiting the links in the email was the appalling spelling and grammar. They may be smart, but obviously not smart enough.

Reply
Html Link

5 months ago

It’s sad this scam is still going around. There are new people starting websites for the first time and unfortunately there are a lot of outdated tactics/strategies at the disposal of newbies (i.e. PR). My advice for newbies is READ, READ, READ, before diving into potential scams!

Reply
Luc

4 months ago

I unfortunately fell for such a scam too. I should have known it was a scam when they needed 24 or so hours to place a link on their sidebar, while any other webmasters could have done the the same in less than 5 minutes.

Reply
Ata

2 months ago

My site is just over a month old and yet i have receive 3 link exchange requests. i was very happy when i received the first request for link exchange to a PR5. I questioned her why she wanted to exchange links when i have no PR yet. I didn’t receive a response as she realised i caught on when i checked the website PR again. It was a zero. After the third request i filled out the form on the nomoreemails and hopefully should not receive any more link exchanges.
Ata´s last blog ..Locating The Right Tulsa Search Engine Marketing Company

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