Moz Netiquette
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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?
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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!
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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