I received this letter from the “Us Domain Authority” the other day.
US Domain Authority Phishing Letter – WOW. Click to see details
I look at this as another form of phishing. I am very familiar with electronic phishing (emails trying to get you to reveal personal or financial information) however this was a physical letter sent to my business. On first take, this letter looks like an invoice for services. When reading the details, which most of us will not do, it is a solicitation to have your domain listed with a backlink to your website. This prompted a quick gut check as what does this give me rather than a backlink? Well my first thought is Black Hat SEO which in essence is a website that offers to provide you with a backlink along with thousands of other websites.
Google list Black Hat vs White Hat SEO as “Black hat SEO uses tactics that violate the search engine’s rules and for that reason, carry the risk of getting caught up in algorithm changes that try to catch the rule breakers. White Hat SEO uses tactics that follow the rules set out by search engines and therefore, carries little or no risk.”
So I shared this letter in one of my business referral groups recently and low and behold 6 of referral group’s members immediately showed their identical letter on the Zoom call. Wow, Did Domain Authority send this letter to all domain owners in my area?
So doing a little more due diligence I Googled “US DOMAIN AUTHORITY” the results showed exactly what I suspected. Here is one notable search result that nailed in on the head – https://www.mojomedialabs.com/blog/the-domain-registry-of-america-scam
Bottom line if you receive one of these letters, just throw it in the trash. Then let other domain owners you know that this phishing.
