Bizzare Google Request
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Here is a bizzare e-mail discussion I had with a guy who contacted me yesterday.
xxxUPDATExxx I have posted the second part of this, you can view it here: Second bizarre email
——-Original Message——-
From: xxxxx xxxxxxxxx
Date: 12/8/2006 xx:xx:xx PM
To: Dean Hunt
Subject: DeanHunt.com Google Removal Request
Hello Dean,
My name is [edited] and I run [edited].com
I have been running the site for over two years and we have been ranked very highly for the search term [edited].
On Thursday morning I checked our google positions and your site is now above us for this term. I haev checked your blog and it has nothing to do with [edited], so I think it would be best all round if you remove your blog from google for this search term.
Please understand that we make our living from this, and you are just writing a blog that has nothing to do with [edited].
If you do not remove yourself from google for this search, then I will call them myself and have you removed.
I expect a reply soon.
Thankyou.
[edited]
[edited].com
From: xxxxx xxxxxxxxx
Date: 12/8/2006 xx:xx:xx PM
To: [edited]
Subject: Re: DeanHunt.com Google Removal Request
[edited],
Dean here from DeanHunt.com
I just received your e-mail. My first question would have to be… Are you serious?
I had to re-read your e-mail three times to make sure my eyes were not playing tricks on me!
Here is some more info that may help you understand my stance on this:
a) I have never attempted to rank for the search term [edited], I seem to rank fairly well for [edited], which I suppose is fairly similar. But if Google prefers my site to yours then perhaps you should be asking yourself why that is.
b) There is nothing I can do about removing myself for that search term, nor am I going to attempt to do anything. I have no information on my site related to [edited], so I am sure that the searchers will generally visit your site instead.
c) You can contact Google if you wish! I doubt you will get a serious reply though.
Perhaps instead of wasting your time with e-mails like this you could work on improving your web site instead?
Anyway, good luck with contacting google, if you do get a reply, I would love a copy of their e-mail. I have prepared a nice little place on my wall to hang it from.
Take care,
Dean
UPDATE: I have been getting a LOT of e-mails from people asking if they can blog about this story. So if you want to write about this in your blog/site then feel free.
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130 COMMENTS
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Do You Feel the Buzz?
Dean Hunt puts the "buzz" in buzz marketing
..and the "viral" in viral diseases
hahahaha brilliant ! I would have written the term and domain in this post though, so you rank even higher :))
Alan,
I am seriously considering doing that.
I can’t believe the front of some people, it has to be an American website as they always seem to think the Internet and high ranking positions should belong to them as preference!
I guess emails like that will always brighten up your day!
That is hilarious. I can’t see the term being very competitive if a non relevant page can rank for it, I reckon you should optimize a few other sites for it and bump him down to page 2 :).
LMAO ….. this was wierd.
I dont think those guys know SEO or have anything to do with it.
Hey, that is an unbelievable email, what was that guy thinking. I like your reply btw, top class!
LMAO - sry Dean, but I’m still laughing.
Crossing my fingers here, hoping for your adversary to try and reply. If he ever does, please, PLEASE put it online for the rest of us to read. Remember: Laughter prolongs your life - imagine how many lives a clown like that can save by a few more writings.
See you back at DP
/miko67
Well, I have to believe it. A lot of people doing a lot of weird and funny things lately.
“Anyway, good luck with contacting google, if you do get a reply, I would love a copy of their e-mail. I have prepared a nice little place on my wall to hang it from.”
Please send me a copy too, I would like to have it. erm..come to think of it, I think I would just print the original letter out and hang it on my wall instead. Well, it is the best joke I’ve read in weeks.
Cheers mate.
Casey
That is a lot hilarious. This person very has a problem with ranking his web site. I hopes you stand up to person and do not let him push you round.
grumble, grumble… I’ve had an annoying email like the one you describe above.
Doesn’t this piss you off? I see emails like this across the web and to myself daily, and every time it angers me that an incompetent, mind my language, bitch, thinks he/she owns the internet and can force others to do what is in their own interest.
By the way, if you do get a letter back, can you blog it? thanks..
This is hilarious. I’ve heard people say they are going to sue google because of lost revenue from lower search rankings. I even heard one guy say the “US Government” will have a field day with them. Kinda scary people think like this.
lol, that indeed is hillarious. I could not beleive my eyes either. I wish I could see that site
Hahaha. It’s quite funny, that this person know nothing about Goggle’s ranking…
This is great! I would have definitely posted the site/name. His stupidity.
I think you should post the email in its entirely. Let us see the keywords and the website in question. What will happen if everyone blogged the keywords and linked them to your blog. Now, that would be funny.
Haha, that is funny but I wonder how the guy did indeed rank higher for a term he was not using?…
Please let us know the search term so we can googlebomb you even higher!
Dean, I noticed that your site has ads on it and is probably receiving revenue from traffic. If your website didn’t exist, your visitors might go to mine instead. With that in mind, please send me all of your advertising revenue. If not, I will contact Google and tell on you.
wow, came across this site via digg I’m amazed at hour stupid people can be. Hope you hear from this guy again soon!
ha ha. he r teh ignorantest.
would eveyone mind turning off their computers? you’re using up teh interweb’s broadband and i’m trying to make a living here.
what’s the search term?
For those of you asking for the search term…..
If I post the search term then people could easily figure out the URL in question.
I do not want to be responsible for some guy getting abuse because of my blog.
That said, if he replies with another rude e-mail then I promise you that I will be putting the search term on here AND I will start ranking for the search term on purpose this time
I’m an engineer at Google. I’d certainly be curious what the phrase and website was too.
Hi Matt Cutts.
If you can prove that you are the ACTUAL Matt Cutts from Google then I will happily tell you the search term in question.
Thanks for the comment.
Yea, would be interesting to know more. Do tell.
Anyway… perhaps I should email Robert Scoble about his Google rank… he worked for MS, no way he should be above me.
If I can prove I’m the real Fi, not of Google, will you tell it to me as well?
LMAO Todd is even funnier than your emailer.
Hehe
Ya, tell us what’s the search term?
Wow, the cheek of him, I wonder if he’ll starve if you don’t concede!
Dean
Keep us all up to date on this. Everyone knows organic search positions go up and down. Some of my sites are doing great organic and others not so great.
The complainant obviously relies on organic returns and has had little competition. Now all of a sudden a supplementary entry gets above him. Not unusual as supplementaries stay high for months before falling away.
He’s not using PAID SEARCH so he has no right whatsoever to pass judgement on organic search positions.
John
I have seen emails like this before but never so blatant…Who at google is he going to contact…I can’t even get them to reply about my adsense account…
Reminds me about Kinderstart who is wasting a whole lot of money trying to sue google because they were delisted….
What does the keyword rhyme with?
…
Pretty please?
Ohh my….this is so freaking hillarious.
Being that the internet is tubes, maybe you shouldn’t suggested he upgrade to platnium tubes as you did so more goodies can flow all over
“I have prepared a nice little place on my wall to hang it from.—
Very VERY good reply!
LOL!
Hey - why not turn it into a contest;
Guess the search term.
I’m fairly sure it wasn’t ‘buy viagra’, so maybe…
internet marketing madrid?
hahaha..funny.
Many are curious to know what the keyword is. Any considerations to put it up ? Nice reply, by the way.
I hope you publish the google email if it is sent to you. This is funny stuff!
I wonder what the term is, I hope you were ranked for the name of their company. That would be hilarious.
He He He
That was really a wonderful mail you recieved and even a better reply.
Seeing the digg you have recieved people are really enjoying this post.
Good of you for having the name of the poster edited to save him from further embarrasement.
Best of luck!!!
ROTFL!!!!
Steve Wrote: “I can’t believe the front of some people, it has to be an American website as they always seem to think the Internet and high ranking positions should belong to them as preference!”
It’s people like you that keep that type of prejudice going. Grow up and spend your spare time helping fix up your poor country rather than hating on countries that have more money than yours. Stop the jealousy!!!
Its a bit scary how some people think the internet works. Reminds me when a guy threatned me with violence and would go to the police and make a case on me, just because I banned him from my personal forum
He demanded to have the right to write there.. fooools
PRICELESS! hahaha
Awesome!
People never fail to amaze me.
You should probably totally remove your blog Google just to be safe..
LOL!
Come on, tell us the search term????
I’m surprised you even responded to them. I would have tossed the letter. Google won’t give a crap about this guy.
jajjajaja, i can’t believe this. LOL
haa haa haa what a retard
You should have offered him some sponsorship opportunities
Of course with this item zooming around the net - if it is true or not, is is a great bit of marketing for your blog. We should do a caricature of it!
Dean that is fantastic, simply fantastic. Personally, I would have blogged about the search term, had it in my page title, meta tags, links etc just to make a point
The stupidity of some people… If this person actually knew how Google worked, and maybe some details of the PageRank system, they’d realise that their letter is complete nonsense.
Great entry, by the way.
This is one of the funniest posts I have seen in a very long time. Thanks for sharing this with us. Also please keep us updated on any replies you get.
This is a great story and I have subscribed to your blog to keep informed as it continues. The front of some people, I have heard of big corporates demanding top spot for their trademarks but this is a new one to me!!
Post the search term and let the SEO community go nuts with the SERPs!
Someone should stop the carny ride that is our planet. Apparently this person didn’t meet the “you must be THIS smart to ride” requirement and should be pulled off immediately for safety’s sake.
Hi Dean, check the email address I left in my comment. It’s me.
If you post the serach-item we can all make a post with a trackback to you that will raise the popularity for your site.
On the other hand;
Maybe YOU are playing a trick on us, is your story true…??????
If it is a trick, it is a good one.
Is it the guy that sells Comida Buena ceramic bowls, or maybe has a restaurant with that name?
You are a greater man than me Gunga Din. I would have posted everything except his web page. No need to supply him with free hits or adverting.
Haha, I just added this article to my del.icio.us. I find this hilarious as well as outrageous. I would totally post the search term.
haaaaaa que ingnorante es ese cuate, que tan pobre tiene la mente, pero cual es la direccion del sitio?
Idiots deserve to be exposed. Post away, sir!
I’m curious of the search term as well, but I agree with your stance. Besides we don’t want any links, accidental or otherwise, to this idiot.
This is a classic example of DIY work. If this idiot hired a good SEO they wouldn’t feel frustrated and act like they’re more important than you. And I wouldn’t be smiling.
You’re joking right? Some people.
That’s pretty damn funny. Whats the search term? if you linked to his site, considering all the back links to this post it would benefit him and he won’t even understand it. The irony would be epic.
What a moron. Instead of bitching and complaining to you and threatening to sue you, maybe he should invest his time and money into hiring an SEO specialist *rollseyes*
Heard about this over at fused nation and couldn’t believe what i saw. What an absolute Tool!
Nice one!
But this guy deserves to be named and shamed.
You could do it anonymously [url=http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums/]here[/url] - or I’d be happy to do it for you
Hey Dean, what’s his email? I need more clients.
Could you send him my email from the “Mail (will not be published) (required)” field?
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal gave me:
baby
sleeping baby
for deanhunt.com
your site isn’t the top 100 for those terms, so it can’t be that.
looooooooooooooooooool
WTF !!
let him get a life , i’m sure he’s a newbie .
Hope your site’s prepared for a good slashdotting…
I think you should offer (for a small fee) to direct traffic to his site via an ad. Seems like you both win in that case.
You kind of have to feel sorry for the guy. He obviously has no idea how the search engines work, but then again with his arrogant attitute he probably deserves it. I would consider sending him a link to this page so he knows that threatening people on the internet doesn’t work.
Just please tell me that the search term was not SEO!
I mean how ironic would that be?
I am very curious to know what term is ranking so high that he’s upset about. I’d like to BLOG about that term too!
Dean,
you should so give their name and the search term/domain, this is just ridiculous and they need a good pwning.
I sincerely hope the people accusing you of making this up on slashdot are lying. Because, if otherwise, your spelling of “haev” and “Thankyou” is atrocious. HAND.
Good grief, that dude needs to STFU and STFD. What an A-hole.
Dean,
I would suggest that you look to this as a business opportunity — try selling your services to him! After all, you don’t even write about the term, and you’re beating him! Charge him something exhorbitant, and do some basic work to bump him up.
Cheers,
Travis
what a dumbass LMAO!
I wish I knew who this business owner is, he seems like a terrorist. Protecting his identity does increase the suspense factor however.
Full Disclosure Please!
I really need to know who would do this its killing me.
You should really send a note back to him saying that because of his humorous emails your site has attained many new hits (including me) and that the Google Ads on your site have likely gotten quite a few more views than usual, therefore netting Google more money than his site (which likely has no revenue traceback to Google). Just my 2 cents on the matter.
A tip for ranking highly on search engines:
A friend of mine who maintains a few small web sites tends to have his sites rank very well. He indicates that if he codes the htnl by hand and uses CSS for features (menus and etc.) instead of embedding html in the main page to do the same thing, then he ranks well. He also says that to use any of the popular windows based tools for website construction is a sure way to kill your ranking. Basically the search engines seem to prefer real content over a bunch of extra markup.
I haven’t got the experience to verify his comment but it makes sense.
Obviously the people who know the least technically will tend to use the products that are the greatest deterent to a website ranking highly.
This incident just gave you a million dollars worth of press, not to mention a higher PageRank. Congrats!
He really has shot himself in the foot - with even more people linking to your blog now, I suspect your ranking on Google will go up even further for all search terms, including the one in question
Thank you dean, I now know that i am not the only one been threatened my email by the competition, with this kind of annoying jokes.
Search engine optimization is a kind of “black magic”, at least, here in Portugal, for the great majority of the web companies.
Content is king.
Enjoy the Ad $$$ from this little page - it was a brilliant idea!
Tell the truth, there was no letter, no one wrote to you,
you just thought this up and just made a bundle off of the idea by posting it to blogs, digg, slashdot, etc…?
Really, you are brilliant if you made this up!
Dude…Did you not tell him All Your Base Are Belong To Us? He should have known somebody set us up the bomb.
“He indicates that if he codes the htnl by hand and uses CSS for features (menus and etc.) instead of embedding html in the main page to do the same thing, then he ranks well.”
I would agree with that - my sites seem to rank very highly and I write every piece of code by hand. Most commercial tools litter the html with gobs of useless and unnecessary code. I also use includes and templates to build my finished pages before uploading, so there’s no dynamic content.
Some people just don’t get it! Keep up the good work Dean.
What position on the SERPs were you for that term?
How many others were above you? Are they all businesses.
The term could be a result from one of the Titles on your topics - in that case, it usually is only temporary
I’m guessing the search term is “dean marketing” but I’m not sure about the site - a toss-up… but the site http://www.onlinemarketingmuscle.com/ would be perfect for the story. I’m also leaning towards “Dean Design and Marketing Group” but I would guess they have better sense than that.
Hope I win… no wammies no wammies no wammies - stop!
Excellent. The update is superb as well.
Can you believe the world is full of guys like this.
I have posted a blog to my site linking to your articles dean, just to help improve you site rankings
That’s seriously gotta be one of the most stupid things I’ve ever come across!
Meh, it’s not your fault that Google wants to rank you higher over his site, meh.
I know there’s some stupid shiz in the world, but this beats a lot of it.
Keep us updated!
Dean
You had to deal with that guy for a day, but he has to live with himself for the rest of his life. Man, that sucks.
The first part way fun, not only for you, but for us all. The second part, that hurts. Badly.
I’m just wondering if he’s aware …
Whats google?
What in the hell is wrong with these morons?!
It’s like Burger King threatening to sue McDonald’s because thy’re more popular. What a bunch of tools…
ya know, I did a “view source” of your site and noticed “world” & “internet” & “marketing” keywords. then I went to “the google” and searched those words and guess what? you came up on the first page - #007 I think! hmmmmmmm! but I doubt that has anything to do with the words you won’t mention.
Dean… Start selling Air Guitars for three billion dollars a pop… now you’re an online business. Now he has to shut up.
Maybe you should name him and link to his site. Then the rest of us can openly mock him in our blogs. All the cross-linking will raise his Google ranks.
Brilliant response
some people are just born stupid
LOL
Stupid e-mails are the best
Wow, now that is funny.
I think you should have posted his site
And rank for his site.
This is really funny…
Either he’s the spoilt brat of a rich daddy who always got his way or he was beaten up in school and trying to act the hard man from behind his computer. Either way, that is one sad individual who needs to get a life.
What a grade A muppet. Some people out there amaze me. Now that he’s followed up with yet another “threat” are you going to spill the beans and disclose the search term? I can feel another Ted Leonsis moment coming on!
Absolutely hilarious I tell ya!
The story has been all over the internet…
> The story has been all over the internet…
much more. First I read this in Russian and late met magazine post.
You are faimost!
p.s. sorry for my english
Haha fantastic story - some people are too stupid to have email accounts. If this Guy’s living depends on ranking highly for the particular search term then perhaps he should make a one-off payment to an SEO expert and sort the problem out at his end, as you hint at in your reply. I hope he see’s this blog posting and realise how happy he’s made a lot of web surfers.
- It’s seo 2007 strategies, Have you the third email dean.
Remove something from Google? Like anyone has that much power. I have seen Google hold info for a year after a site was taking offline. This guy has no clue how the net works.
Aw, c’mon! Ya just GOTTA tell us who that joker was and what the search terms were!
Such idiocy deserves publicity!
If this kind of whining works, I think I’ll call GOOGLE and ask ‘em to downgrade the BILLION or so blogs that outrank mine……..
what a looser! You shouldn’t take this serious.
the speed at which I get downgraded in searches is a mickey take. but the solution is simple-More Quality Links.
I really hate google!!!!!!!!!!!!!
im just kidding!!!!!!!! i was mad 4 a second. im really really really really sorry
This sure has improved my day. Damn. I wish I could get e-mails like that I am pretty sure I would leave long enough to see my great great great kids.
Best reply ever.
Lol. I think this happens with a lot of people these days. It happened with one of my friends 2 years back, but it wasn’t a threatening email like the one you got! They requested for the removal of their name from his website because it was outranking them on Google. LOL.
Ohh
Thats funny boss. Poor guy might have lost thinking why his site is getting lower ranking than yours.
Happy to read your reply.
- Mitsss
One Of all the Best Of blog posts making the rounds, this was my favorite - Best Internet Marketing Blog.Good luck world !!!
That’s pretty funny and you are right. He should spend more time trying to beat your ranking then writing emails complaining. I actually think google is quite fair in ranking once you accept the fact that content brings links and therefore high rankings.
This actually give me an idea. Try to stirr up a mess bugging someone for free linkbait/publicity.
I blogged this story. =)
Oh my god, what were they thinking. This is very funny. Lol.
Wow! I thought that I got stupid emails, some people really take the biscuit. I wonder where he is the rankings now if he wastes so much time sending out silly emails. That said it did give me a laugh so I am glad.