Want your link on my website? Hint: Fraudulently claiming you’re a CNet editor is not the way to do it.

Last month, I’d written about a particularly egregious kind of SEO link spam, where a shady PR agency was masquerading as a university student. A few days later, I received another spam email with a similar goal. Except, this one is even more brazen. Look at this email from Ella Miller:

Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:12:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ella Miller <emiller@slateberry.com>
To: Fabian A. Scherschel <contact@fab.industries>
Subject: quick question

I noticed you shared an article from CNet.com when you talked about health and wellness here: https://fab.industries/newsletter/2020/57/

We recently published an article about a related topic, 12 scientifically-backed ways to reduce stress, that I thought might be interesting to your readers.

We start by defining stress and why we need to reduce it. Then we share proven ways to reduce stress, such as:

• Exercise and laughter
• Spending time with family and friends
• Yoga and mindfulness practices
• Limiting your caffeine intake

We quote 28 different sources in the article – it’s quite authoritative.

Here’s the article if you want to take a look: https://iontodri.com/12-scientifically-backed-ways-to-reduce-stress/

Would you consider linking to our article? I think some of your readers would find it interesting.

Thank you for your time, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Cheers,

-Ella

‐‐
Ella Miller, Editor
5 Ross Rd
Durham, NH 03824

BTW, if you didn’t like getting this email, please reply with something like “please don’t email me anymore”, and I’ll make sure that we don’t.

Typical link spam, yes. I recognised it as such immediately and would never even remotely consider taking and offer like this seriously. But there is something interesting going on here, as well. Even though she’s careful to never say this outright, Ella is implying that she works at CNet as an editor. If that’s the case, she must be working from home. Because whatever is at 5 Ross Road in Durham appears to be a single home (which seems to be worth just over half a million dollars, BTW). And she’s also writing for weird websites on the sly? Anyway, I decided to write back and ask, just to make sure:

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2021 16:52:38 +0200 (CEST)
From: Fabian A. Scherschel <contact@fab.industries>
To: Ella Miller <emiller@slateberry.com>
Subject: Re: quick question

Hi!

You’re not a CNet editor, are you? You don’t seem to have an editorial email address…

Fab

To which Ella (probably not a CNet editor) replied:

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2021 21:02:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ella Miller <emiller@slateberry.com>
To: Fabian A. Scherschel <contact@fab.industries>
Subject: Re: quick question

Hi George,

Thanks for taking the time to look into this. We’re a small team that works with https://iontodri.com <https://iontodri.com/12-scientifically-backed-ways-to-reduce-stress/> to identify and reach out to websites that might be interested in the content that they publish. They stay really busy solving problems and creating content, so they asked us to help them connect with sites like yours. You can always visit our official website at www.cornerstonelinks.com. If you have other questions please let me know! Thanks, Ella

So the sleazy PR agency that is doing this crap this time is Cornerstone Links, which has a very sketchy website that doesn’t even have a mail address or PO box listed. I can’t even begin to imagine who would work with sleazeballs like this. I’m sure CNet wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. They can’t even get the names of the people they molest via email straight.

At this point, I was so busy with other things that I actually completely forgot to do anything about this. Like threatening them with consequences for sending me cold emails in violation of the GDPR, as my website clearly tells them not to do that, or for pretending to be from a respected company when they really weren’t. Instead, I moved on with my life. Until those sleazy fucks actually wrote me again last night:

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2021 14:57:25 (PDT)
From: Ella Miller <emiller@slateberry.com>
To: Fabian A. Scherschel <contact@fab.industries>
Subject: Re: quick question

Hi Fabian,

I just wanted to check back in and see if you would still consider adding a link to our article.

Here’s a quick refresher:

I noticed you shared an article from CNet.com when you talked about health and wellness here: https://fab.industries/newsletter/2020/57/

Actually, we recently published an article that goes deep into the story.

Here’s the article for you to check: https://iontodri.com/12-scientifically-backed-ways-to-reduce-stress/

Would that be ok for you if we could link to our article from your (already excellent) page?

Thank you for your time, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Ella

At least she got my name right this time. But the absolute kicker is this sentence:

Would that be ok for you if we could link to our article from your (already excellent) page?

I mean, sure, you can try. Try to see if you can get my website to link to you without my doing.

What a bunch of cocksuckers. No wonder everyone hates PR people. Well, these fucks have earned a permanent blacklisting of their email domain on my servers. But I’m guessing they are using the parked slateberry.com domain, because they quickly intend to move on from it. I can’t be the only one who is blackholing their bullshit emails.

Ah, the fun I’m having, being a journalist and having to deal with these people…

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Header image credit: Timothy Eberly