SearchKing Lives to Spam Again

I got a pleasant visit from the past in my inbox this morning and a reminder that the web changes, but cannot get rid of its past. Failed business and empty handed CEO’s may hibernate, but they will always try to reinvent themselves with each technology paradigm shift. This morning I saw the attempted rebirth of searchking.com

I remember the searchking controversy well, and followed the birth of brokering pagerank first hand. in 2002 Bob Massa, searchking.com CEO was the first person to publiclly sell links. The result – total annhilation. His site, including thousands of users, forum members, and commenters were dropped from the Google index.

Mr. Massa then sued to get back into Google’s index and was rejected.

Read a post about Bob Massa’s brilliant idea to harness the power of pagerank

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165111

This case is notable for 2 reasons. It was the first public acknowledgement that link manipulation can greatly influence search engine results pages.

The second result is that the courts threw out Searchking’s case, effectively saying Google has the right to include or reject any website it wants. http://www.pandia.com/sw-2003/21-searchking.html

Google holds a grudge, the website name is not in their search results: http://www.google.com/search?q=searchking

Now the original pagerank broker is back in business, outsourcing social media to India. Same dish, different sauce.

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/344

Below is an email I received from Mr. Massa’s website scrapers and email harvesters:

Hi Cvos,

My name is Shrenik Vora with Techndu and I just wanted to tell you that I have been a recent reader of www.seomoz.org and I have got your contact details from http://www.seomoz.org/users . I’ve have also gone through your company website www.netpaths.net . I think you show real insight into the issue of social media marketing.

Cvos, Techndu is a division of SearchKing Techno Labs and is owned by Bob Massa. You may be familiar with Bob as he has been a leader in the SEO community for well over a decade. Bob has put together a team in India that specializes in doing the tasks that are so important to any SEO campaign yet are the most labor intensive parts. We specialize in ultra white hat, strictly manual link building and high quality, original content creation for wholesale SEO clients.

The two parts of SEO that everyone needs and very few enjoy doing. We do the hard work you don’t like doing and that frees up your time to do the things you are best at and do enjoy doing! I would love the opportunity to prove how I could be a help to you and show you how we could make more profits by working together. If you have any interest in top quality link building that is guaranteed to move even your most challenging clients, or if you have a need for excellent quality, original content at a price that just can not be beaten by anyone, then I would love the chance to gain your business.

We are working with some of the best known SEO firms in the world now and are providing links and content to some 200 domains a month. With a staff of 18, we are generating over 4,000 ON THEME links each week. We are growing so fast because we treat our clients business like it was ours, because in a way, it is. We need you more than you need us and that is why our commitment to excellence is second to none and if you give me the chance, I’ll prove it to you! If nothing else, at least let me show you the reports we generate each week on your behalf.

Communication is the key to success with any client and our comprehensive reports make that task easier, faster and more clear. Just looking at the reports may give you some ideas of how you could better serve your clients even if you never do business with Techndu. it doesn’t cost anything to just look and there is no obligation whatsoever. While Bob has been in this business for a long time, Techndu is new, we are hungry and we WANT your business. We will work very hard to get it but even harder to keep it. But I can’t prove that to you until you give me the chance. Just reply, ask me, (or Bob), ANYTHING and we’ll respond within 24 hours!

Shrenik, Vora
Business Development Specialist Techndu

Skype: ShrenikVora