Domain name offer spam emails
Domain Name Offers Via Email
I have just received an unsolicited email from a person purporting to be Dale Stirling of HSBF Internet (hsbf.com) informing me that they have conservatoryfloors.co.uk available for sale and wondering if I was interested.
It always worries me when I receive unsolicited emails for companies who appear to be experts in their field and yet the domain name that they are using to send the spam email from, doesn’t even have a website attached to it, which is the case with HSBF.com. Now, I don’t know Dale Stirling and I have no reason to suspect that there isn’t a perfectly good reason why HSBF Internet doesn’t have a published web site on the URL that they are using, but it did raise my suspicions, ever so slightly.
I mention this as a lead in to explain how to grade the value of a domain name, as HSBF were attempting to flog me the domain name, conservatoryfloors.co.uk. Quite why they thought I would be interested in the conservatory floors domain name, I’m not sure, but such is the randomness of this kind of spam, that I won’t worry about their reasons.
So, conservatoryfloors.co.uk - just how strong a domain name is it? Let’s see.
First of all, I checked the PageRank and the established, incoming links to the site - no links and no PageRank. Not good so far.
I thought it must be fully cached in Google and well established? No, not even in the Google or MSN index and not fully indexed in Yahoo - losing it’s appeal.
It must be a long established name with years of longevity? Nope, conservatoryfloors.co.uk was registered only 6 months ago.
The website itself is well designed, on focus and fully optimised? I’m afraid not. It’s an affiliate site, designed to make money from click-throughs: the very kind of site that Google is trying to keep out of it’s index. Of course, it’s only the domain name that is for sale, but if it is already under a penalty, even the best SEO in the world won’t make it fire up the search engines.
At least it’s a good brand-able name? Afraid not. The conservatoryfloors.com version is already owned by someone else and the hyphened versions, (conservatory-floors.com and conservatory-floors.co.uk) are still available if anyone wants to buy them for as little as £2.59 for a year. If you are going to buy a domain name and build a brand identity in the UK, you need to own the .com and .co.uk version of the name with and without the hyphens. Otherwise, someone can come in with a better optimised site and steal your thunder. Even worse, they could use the domain name as a hate site or a porn site, which wouldn’t do your brand-name any good at all.
To be fair, Dale Stirling of HSBF.com didn’t state how much he wanted for the domain name. He may wish to sell it for five pounds, which is the rough value of the remaining registration, but I suspect he was looking for a tad more than that for it.
Check the value of a domain name before buying
If anyone offers you a domain name for sale, don’t be taken in by a salesman telling you the domain name will automatically give you top spot on the search engines for the related search terms, it simply isn’t true. Judge the value for yourself.
If I sold conservatory floors and this domain was five years old, had an established website, with 150 indexed pages, was PageRank 5, had 500 quality incoming links, lots of front page search engine positions and the other versions of the domain names were available for me to buy, it could be worth from ten thousand pounds to half a million pounds, depending on the turnover that it produced in the past three years.
Sadly, as a domain name that is 6 months old, a poor quality site that may already have been penalised, no PageRank, no links, not indexed, no positions and the three other domain names are either taken or available for peanuts, this isn’t worth any more than the money it would cost if you were the original registrant.
I should state again, the purpose of this article is to point out the value of domain names and not to, in any way, suggest that HSBF are anything but an honest, legitimate company, offering website names at a fair price. After all, the value you of a product is decided on how much a customer is willing to pay for it, not the actual value of the product itself.
17 Responses to “Domain name offer spam emails”
January 25th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Interesting article. HSBF contacted me trying to sell me a similar .co.uk domain name. The domain name was legalstaff.co.uk and like the example you gave in your blog, it has no pagerank, it’s not listed in Google, Yahoo, MSN, DMOZ or the Yahoo Directory and it has no external links pointing to it. On top of that, the .com version of the domain, is live and fully indexed in the search engines. People also own the .org, .net and .info versions of the name. How much did he want for it? £795! Here’s the email I received:
Dear Sirs,
We are selling the domain name LegalStaff.co.uk. This is the very first time since 1996 that this important domain has ever been available on the open market. The domain is currently on sale for just £795 VAT.
Most of our clients are now finding that prime domains such as this pay for themselves within weeks rather than months by virtue of the extra business that they drive to their websites by means of type in traffic and greatly enhanced search engine positions.
Would you like to go ahead with this?
Best regards,
Alan Lawson
HSBF Internet
January 25th, 2007 at 10:18 am
I found a great blog today that mentions HSBF and their email domain name offers. You can find it at You piss me off, you bastard - Mr Angry for the 21st century!
January 25th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I found another blogger who has commented on Mr Lawson and HSBF Internet. You can read the article at: Tim Trent
November 21st, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I just wanted to thank you very much for this ensightful article. I have already bookmarked your site, when I have more free time I am going to have to do some further browsing. Well back to my dreaming of Panama or back to the books - I wonder which one is going to win out. 
November 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am
I see you already know a lot about the online stuff - Yeah, I had a look at your blog and procrastinated there for a while
December 11th, 2009 at 9:26 am
I normally dont leave comments but I love this show sooo much! I bookmarked this post on dig!
If you are going to leave spam “Jimmy” at least give it a chance - make it something to do with the article, you twat!
March 1st, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Hey nice post! Found this on google - glad to see someone thinking the same.
June 2nd, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Hey do you guys have a Twitter account I could follow? I’m sick of using RSS feeds! It’d be great if you did it’s a lot easier to find updates since I use Twitter so much! I’ll be back for sure! Top right hand corner of the page - the blue twitter bird (That’s the clue…… ) Big Man
June 6th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Apple now has Rhapsody as an app, which is a great start, but it is currently hampered by the inability to store locally on your iPod, and has a dismal 64kbps bit rate. If this changes, then it will somewhat negate this advantage for the Zune, but the 10 songs per month will still be a big plus in Zune Pass’ favor. What are you talking about? You’re not a spamtwat are you? 
BM
June 11th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Actually to be honoust I really didnt enjoy this show at all. Im glad I could watch this movie free of charge at this website, since else I would have had paid for it at the cinema. If you are going to leave spam, at least try to direct the comment to the article, or even the subject of the website you twat! BM
June 13th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Another scam is a guy offers to buy your domain if you get it independantly valued and they make their money getting a cut from that independant company. they never then buy it. I haven’t seen that one. Do you have an example email? BM
June 29th, 2010 at 6:55 am
Can I use this information on my own blog? Yes, if you think the people on your Viagra blog will be interested in an article about spammers? But then again, as a spammer yourself, you have no intention of printing this on your blog. do you? Spamtwat! BM
July 19th, 2010 at 3:55 am
Hi there BM,
That’s some thorough investigative research you performed on “conservatoryfloors.co.uk” to work out its TRUE market value - excellent I thought - good work! I learnt something new today.
PS. I not only read your article, but also the posted comments/replies above and your sense of humor cracked me up. Although I hope you don’t swat me on the head as an ugly “twat” lol.
Cheers As if I would Bryce! BM
November 29th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
can you tell me how to receive a good domain name and how to get some easy cash from it?
There’s no such thing as easy cash from a domain name. In fact, there’s no such thing as easy cash from a website - it all takes hard work and lots of it! BM
January 25th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I’ve just been offered build-a-website.co.uk from Alan Hardy at HSBF.com. Similar circumstance to domain name examples given above, he is selling the domain name for
just £475. Surprisingly, this domain name that he has for sale is also the very first time since 1996 this name has ever been available on the market, yet it was registered in April 2006. How is that possible?
I would be interested to know if anyone reading this has bought one of these domain names from Alan Hardy, Dale Stirling, Alan Lawson, or whatever name was used that day.