Expiration Notification Scam

Have you ever received this message?

This important expiration notification notifies you about the expiration notice of your domain registration for DOMAIN-NAME.COM search engine optimization submission. The information in this expiration notification may contain confidential and/or legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the Domain Seo Service Registration to purchase our search engine traffic generator. We do not register or renew domain names. We are selling traffic generator software tools. This information is intended for the use of the individual(s) named above.
If you fail to complete your domain name registration DOMAIN-NAME.COM search engine optimization service by the expiration date, may result in the cancellation of this search engine optimization domain name notification notice.

If you’ve never owned domain names before, getting such message may have you worried and digging through your wallet to enter your credit card information.

Please DON’T.

Here’s another one I got recently:

Attention: Important Notice , DOMAIN SERVICE NOTICE
Domain Name: domain.com

ATT: My Name
domain.com
Response Requested By
6 – Feb. – 2019

PART I: REVIEW NOTICE

Attn: My Name
As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification for your business Domain name search engine registration.
This letter is to inform you that it’s time to send in your registration.

Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web.

Privatization allows the consumer a choice when registering. Search engine registration includes domain name search engine submission.
Do not discard, this notice is not an invoice it is a courtesy reminder to register your domain name search engine listing so your customers can locate you on the web.

This Notice for: domain.com will expire at 11:59PM EST, 6 – Feb. – 2019 Act now!

I can assure you the above messages are pure junk. These scam artists phrase their emails in such a way that non-technically inclined people may be tempted to pay for this, afraid that they will lose their newly acquired domain name.

You WON’T!

Delete those emails right away.

They have nothing to do with domain name registration. (You COULD receive valid emails reminding you that your domain name is about to expire. You DO need to renew your domain name annually or else you’ll lose it. Best to always set your domain names to auto-renew and ensure you maintain a valid credit card on file with your domain name registrar.)

The quoted emails above talk about some Search Engine Optimization submission or Search Engine Registrationabout to expire for the domain name in question.

NEVER pay ANYONE for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services. Your money is much better spent anywhere else.

If you want to work on your SEO, there’s a free WordPress plugin called Yoast SEO and it comes with free video tutorials that explain how to use it.

Google is getting smarter everyday, so I personally believe that SEO is becoming less and less important due to search engines becoming better at understanding what pages are all about.

There are other actions you can take to help improve your site’s SEO juice, but that’s a much larger topic. I’ll save it for another day.

Now, go and create more books.