Marketingeasy

Another day I wrote about a sneak seo scam. Today on DaveN’s blog he uncovers another SEO anti-linking tactic used for BlackHat(ers).

It works like this:

Your competitor emails a “Cease and Desist” letter to webmasters linking to your website, asking them to remove the outbound links to YOUR website.

They present themselves as “owner” of your brand and asking your to remove it.

This is the Example of the email:

_______________

Dear Sir/Madam

I am contacting you on behalf of Insurance.com, located in Cleveland, Ohio. We manage Insurance.com’s Internet monitoring function for brand identity issues on the Internet.

The following website ( removed ) uses the trademarked name of Insurance.com or one of its subsidiaries on its site.

As owner of the name, Insurance.com (and/or its subsidiaries) owns the exclusive right to reproduce and use its trademarks and authorize any reproduction and use. Insurance.com does not recognize the use of its name in the above-referenced site as authorized. Therefore, your use of this trademark is a violation of its rights.

Insurance.com demands that you cease and desist from using its name in any manner and that you remove all use of its trademark from the referenced website.

Please address these issues immediately. Please contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

Trademark Administration
Insurance.com

—————–

I can think of many websites removing links trying to avoid legal problem. I should agree is indeed a clever scheme,

Cheers

Lucio Dias Ribeiro