Moz Netiquette
-
It's now happened three times in three days: I get unsolicited email (apparently harvested from my Moz profile) that invites me to try a new product or contribute to a new site.
The senders are completely unknown to me. The emails are full of hype, sketchy on details and poorly written. They have all the hallmarks of phishing scams.
But on further inquiry the emails seem to be legit.
I nonetheless feel entitled to confess my extreme exasperation. When did sending unsolicited mass email of the "Dear Colleague" variety to perfect strangers become acceptable business practice? It's always struck me as being beyond the pale and beneath contempt. Why would anyone try to launch a business which such dubious and unsavoury tactics?
Am I missing something here? Or becoming a fuddy duddy?
I suppose I could remove my contact info from my MOZ profile, but I have found it useful in the past.
What surprises me is that people would contact me "out of the blue" to ask for free help without making the slightest attempt to cultivate a relationship first.
Am I wrong?
-
We actively try to monitor for spamming comments, but it's less easy to monitor for spammy PMs or people scraping your email address and emailing directly (we have three letters in our name, but we're not one of the three letter agencies!).
What helps us out is if you give thumbs down to spammy comments, and report those PMs as spam. We actively review what's gotten a thumbs down on the blog, and get emailed if a PM is reported as spam.
Hope this helps!
-
oh man that's true. I get about 3 a day right now, wonder how many the others get by now LOL
Marketing to marketers using bad marketing skills = Not a good campaign
-
I totally agree. The accounts that harvest these emails (and send spammy content) often times are newly created and have few moz points. The points are derived from posts that say: "great post" or "I agree"--nothing of substance or value to the thread/community. If a mozzer (that I see on the boards on a regular basis) shoots me an email for advice, I don't mind it. However, should be posted on these boards for the good of the community.
-
I too have received several spammy 'private messages' to my MOZ account. I sent a message to MOZ support concerning these users spamming members. I was told that reported accounts would be deleted.
-
I ask myself the same questions, why would anyone invest in such a marketing campaign? It seems to me that it would be a huge waste of time.
But, to quote one of my favorite sayings, "If you throw enough shit against a wall, some of it has gotta stick." The people that send out these email are probably not concerned with quality or conversion rates.
On a side note, you could remove your email address from your profile, but Moz does a great job of masking it already. If you don't have Javascript on (a lot of bots, scrapers and crawlers don't), then the email address won't be displayed. Also - do a quick Google search for your email address - I found it on several other sites.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Change email address just for communication with Moz
I want to keep my email address as it is now for all of my profiles, however to manage my MOZ account I prefer that my assistant get the emails. If I change my email address on the Moz account will that trigger a change anywhere else? Thanks, Cindy Cindy@PTScoaching.com
Product Support | | CGoldrich1 -
Why didn't the Moz rankings change yesterday?
As of this morning, the Domain Authority section on our campaign still reads: "Next scheduled update: Jan 25, 2017 PST" and nothing has changed - it is still showing our old DA and how much it went up since last time. Is this a problem on our end, or is Moz experiencing difficulties with DA updates? Thanks in advance!
Product Support | | whiteonlySEO0 -
Moz having a few issues with their site?
I've seemed to have a load of issues as of late. Just small graphical things but still enough to make me concerned. 1. https://moz.com/community/users/4207879 being noindex (however it seems to other users an external tools work) (image proof: https://i.gyazo.com/2e77c94ffd068718e9e149e8afef1e44.png ) 2. No mozpoints: https://gyazo.com/9e0777af3ebbdb6ad58a395bafe28a52 3. I'm a staff member? https://i.gyazo.com/5d7b156c13fa1d0bb6c2e0af3467423f.png 4. Trying to respond when logged out: https://i.gyazo.com/9f5fe8efd372920391a9a54178561e0b.png (not really a bug, however could be a better experience) These have all been sent via support, just wondered if it was just me having issues? Seems i'm staff on this one too: https://i.gyazo.com/6f1bc6372180f4f9f1cb1c7d6f6d941c.png
Product Support | | ThomasHarvey0 -
Moz usability
Why is it such a hassle to access Moz campaigns from the frontpage of Moz? How can MOZ be so awesome and at the same time be so annoying? Does Moz have UX designer working with them?
Product Support | | guidetoiceland0 -
When will true multi-user log-in be available in Moz Pro? How about an archive?
Our team is growing and we are running into each others' research on the tool! Will our users ever be able to use their own instance of Moz? Also, how about a historical archiving function for research? Would be nice to record past research as similar requests come to us in the future. Wish list stuff - thx.
Product Support | | Jen_Floyd0 -
Latest Moz reports (pro) not including competitive link analysis
Hi Pls advise when these have been regenerated once fixed or will they just be emailed out automatically ? My clients all after their New Year monthly & quarterly reports hence this info is needed urgently, pls advise ? Also when will reports start showing social data in the reports and also when will the data that currently shows on the dash start to be accurate ? (or are you leaving this 'as is' on pro since your migrating to Moz analytics ?) Many Thanks Dan
Product Support | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Has the Moz website update affected my data?
Hi Moz, I can see you are currently updating your website and regularly get either the new or old moz format when I log into my account. When I am in my account and Moz is in the new format my account info including keyword ranking & external followed links dramatically change. I am just trying to investigate if it is a moz issue with data or something else? Help would be appreciated. Thanks a lot, Beth
Product Support | | cmuknbb0 -
Moz crawls
Hi all! I'm running two separate campaign crawls at the moment that I'm having a few issues with. The first is http://www.muchbetteradventures.com/. I'm tracking this at root to try an pick any problems with a previous version of the site, which is on the v1.muchbetteradventures subdomain. However, I'm only seeing 100 or so pages as being crawled in Moz, compared to thousands in Google. There's no access blocked alerts in Moz either. The second is http://www.sothebys.com/. I started this crawl at root a few days ago and no pages at all have been processed. Very odd! Any advice would be much appreciated.
Product Support | | neooptic0