Phishing?

[randy_byers]

Okay, here's an e-mail I got yesterday that I don't really grok:

Hi,

We are interested in producing editorial content for your site.

We would be happy to pay an administration fee of $90 for your time spent reviewing and publishing our content referencing our client, one of the largest entertainment and gaming operators in the UK & worldwide. The content will be professionally written in line with your site’s tone and voice.

Payment can be made by PayPal.

I appreciate your consideration and look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Carson Bland
Marketing Assistant

I assume the point of this is to get me to visit the URL they give in order to download malware on my computer or something. Very strange.

Comments

[drplokta]

They want you to publish on your website material (with links) that they write, in order to boost their Google rankings. The offer of payment is probably genuine.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

They are link farmers. They want you to host spam content on your site to boost the page rank of theirs.

http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/online-safety/reporting-abuse/

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Its astroturfing - trying to make it look like there's genuine fan support for some entertainment product of theirs. As Mike says the money is prob genuine but do you really want to be involved? I have had similar offers (even more bizarre and less connected to my own content) for my law blawg.

EDIT : or even more likely, yeh, link farming. I wouldn't bother reporting - Google's algorithm catches up..