As a blogger, a good 70% of the emails you get on a daily basis tend to be requests looking for links. Why? Well, the short answer is “search engine algorithms” — if a site has links going to to it from trusted sites, that site’s domain authority can also increase, leading to better rankings. But, while asking for links is common practice, they do come in a few different flavors.
Typically, a backlink request is framed as an additional resource for readers, e.g. “I saw this post and think this link would be helpful to add.” Whether or not that’s actually the case can vary from email to email but these requests are pretty straightforward. Next up would be the paid link inquiries — which you shouldn’t participate in. Then, I’ve seen scams where a business you’ve written about reaches out asking you to update the link to their site… only the new link isn’t their site but a third party directory. This has happened to me with local restaurants a couple of times over on a different site I write for, so I’ve gotten good at spotting those frauds. However, this week, I got an entirely new-to-me backlink scam that’s honestly kind of mindblowing.
Earlier this week, I saw an email in my inbox with “DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice” as the subject. While I have a stock photo subscription and also use free image sites, there could always be a mix up, so I opened it with some admitted amount of fear. Luckily, however, although the email does have a few somewhat convincing elements, it’s also filled with enough red flags that I was quickly able to surmise that things were amiss. So let’s go through them.
First, rather than addressing me by name (despite the fact that my name is on the post and in my email address), it read “Dear owner of [link to blog post].” That’s right — not even the name of the site, but just a naked link to the specific post. Weird. The next line reads, “I represent the Intellectual Property division. We have identified an image belonging to our client on your website.” This was followed by an Imgur link, which I did not click but I imagine just has a copy of one of the photos on the post. Note that this does not, in any way, prove ownership of the image as Imgur is an image hosting site that anyone can upload to.
Next came what were probably the two biggest giveaways: the apparent owner of the image and the ask. According to the email, I was to credit Dubai SIMs for the image. As the “law firm” wrote, “Please add a direct and clickable hyperlink to [Dubai SIMs link] either beneath the image or in the footer of the page.”
First, I’m not sure anyone has said “hyperlink” this Millennium — but, more importantly, this is a very strange request. Usually, if someone is going through the trouble of hiring an attorney, they’re looking for compensation, not just a link. Additionally, while adding an image credit link below the image makes sense, adding it to the footer is odd. By the way, the email did point out that deleting the image was not enough and that they could always just use the Wayback Machine to prove I’d used it. Lastly, they advised me to “Please correspond in English,” which may be the funniest of the red flags I caught.
After I’d convinced myself that this was indeed a scam, I decided to do some additional digging, starting with the name of the firm: Commonwealth Legal Services. Apparently, this firm is based in Phoenix, Arizona — which is also interesting since Arizona is not a commonwealth like Massachusetts, Virginia, or some other states are. Googling the firm’s name, I did find a site ending in .biz (an extension used by only the top law firms in the Grand Canyon state *sarcasm*). Sure enough, looking on the site, I found my lawyer, Dean Parker. He was actually listed under Real Estate Mediation, but his bio does explain that he also deals with copyright claims. For the record, I did a reverse image search for a few “lawyer” headshots and found similar photos but no matches. This leads me to believe that the images along with the copy and even blog posts on the site are likely AI generated.
Finally, I also decided to check on their business details. Searching their address (3909 N 16th St, 4th Floor Phoenix, AZ 85016), I found that there were real businesses there, but no Commonwealth Legal Services. One of those businesses even had a phone number that happened to be just one digit different from Commonwealth’s supposed number. Speaking of phone numbers, running a search for the firm’s (480) 581-5282 number led me to find alternate sites for Commonwealth which have since been suspended. So, if this fakery wasn’t already clear by now, this detail sealed it.
As far as scams go, this one isn’t too harmful as adding a link to your site probably isn’t going to do too much damage. That said, linking to potentially scammy sites not only does a disservice to your readers but could also impact your site’s authority. Because of this, it is vital to be aware of these types of scams and avoid falling for them. At the same time, it is also important to ensure that you have proper credit for the images you’re using, which is why I’d recommend trying free sites like Pixabay or subscriptions like Envato rather than trying to take images from Google. Hopefully doing so will help keep you out of real trouble so that you can sniff out these fake trouble issues when they arise.
P.S., if Dean Parker Esq. is reading this, feel free to follow up — I’m guessing you won’t.