Ding! Obviously spam or a scam, without even opening the message. How do I know? Well, first the sender’s name has no capitalization. What kind of professional uses a name without capitalizing the first letter of their first and last name? Secondly, the subject screams out programmatic email with the brackets being used as a key to insert website names.

So, what other giveaways are there? I decided to open the message:

So here is what I see

1. Message was dated 6:46 PM and I got it 2 hours later. Not sure that means much.
2. Email address has about 10 digits after the name ellie. So, there is obviously a program generating email addresses. I mean, come on, at least have lisarey123456789@gmail.com
3. The greeting addresses me as “Website Owner”. Another indication of automation and spamming is not addressing you by your real name.
4. An address, but no company name or link to company website. They even say “Our company is on the first page when you search on Google for our primary search term ‘SEO Company’”. REALLY? But you won’t tell me what the name of your company is, huh? (btw, here is the search result for “SEO Company” on Google.
5. They say “Simply reply with opt out if not interested to hear from us”. Not very good English, if you ask me.
6. I also did a search on Google and found other people seeing these types of emails.

So I wonder what would happen if I replied?? Not sure I am going to try to find out