I had wanted to write this post the first time I had gotten a Web Listings, Inc letter in the mail and somehow it slipped my mind then. Luckily I own a fair share of domain names and so, sure enough, I got another letter from Web Listings, Inc a few weeks back. So finally it pissed me off enough to ensure I would sit down and write this post.
We’ll start with the first letter I had gotten from them a while back, styled in an invoice fashion, asking me to essentially transfer one of my domain names over to them at the cost of $85 – a pretty ridiculous price to pay for a simple .com domain name. The letter went into the garbage and I hadn’t really given it much thought until a couple weeks back I got another letter from them – this time asking me to pay them $85 to handle some basic SEO work for one of my domain names. They would submit it to 20 established search engines while targeting 8 different keywords. I would also get a search engine position and ranking report sent to me initially and then monthly.
A pretty stellar deal right? Surely this report is significantly more comprehensive than the very same one that I offer totally free. And that search engine submission surely doesn’t target the same 20 search engines included within the list of 53 search engines that I submit to – again totally for free.
Now the outrageous price they charge, and the solicitation is one thing – but what makes this all that much worse is that these letters are styled to look like an invoice. Like something you already owe – and this catches alot of people off guard. Especially when the letter comes with a payment envelope. In their defense they do provide a single line that states this letter is a solicitation and not a bill. One some letters that line is in bold, on some it is not. Regardless it’s pretty evident from these letters, and the complaints filed against them at the BBB – and Web Listings, Inc has a pretty shady business model.
That being said I haven’t necessarily taken the best of care in regards to my latest letter from Web Listings, Inc. I have used it once to dry some spilled water, and once more for some spilled juice. The cat played with the corner a bit. Used it once more to dry some spilled soy sauce. So here’s what I’ve learned.
This is some pretty thick paper. No seriously. It works great to place underneath that extra full cup of caramel machiatto and help get those small spills that will inevitably happen.