That SEO Cold Call Says Your Website Has Errors. Should You Listen?

If you own a business with a website and a Google listing, you've had the calls. A recorded voice saying your Google listing is about to be removed. A cheerful caller who's noticed your website 'isn't showing up'. An email with a screenshot full of red warning icons and a subject line like 'Errors found on yourbusiness.com'. Business owners across Prescott, Prescott Valley and the rest of Yavapai County ask us the same thing: is any of this real?

Some of it is outright fraud. Most of it is legal but misleading. A small amount is a genuine business making a clumsy first approach. This guide explains how each common pitch works, so you can sort them in seconds.

The 'your Google listing will be removed' call

This one is the easiest to rule out. Google says publicly that it does not make unsolicited robocalls about Business Profiles and that a Business Profile is free to create and manage. Calls claiming to be from Google, or 'working with Google', that warn your listing is about to be deactivated unless you pay or verify are not from Google. Hang up.

Your profile is managed from your own Google account. If you want to check it, sign in yourself at Google's own address and look. If anything is wrong, you fix it there, for free. Our Google Business Profile checklist covers what should be on it.

The scary audit email

This is the most common pitch, and it's effective because it starts with something true. Free and paid tools can scan any website and produce a long list of 'errors': missing image descriptions, a slow page, a title that's a few characters long, a page that redirects. The sender runs your site through one, screenshots the scariest part, and emails it to you with an offer to fix it.

The trouble is that these lists mix real problems with trivia, and they rarely tell you which is which. A tool that flags forty 'issues' may be reporting three that matter and thirty-seven that make no measurable difference to anyone. Without context, the list is designed to alarm rather than inform.

How to treat one:

The 'page one' promise

Any pitch that promises a specific ranking, a number one spot or page one within a set time is promising something no one can deliver, because nobody controls Google's results. We explain why in nobody can guarantee Google rankings. It's the single most reliable warning sign in the industry, and Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO says the same.

The domain renewal letter

Less common by phone, still common by post and email: an official-looking notice that your domain is about to expire, with a payment link. Often it's from a company you've never used, and paying it transfers your domain to them, at a higher price. Your real registrar is the company you bought the domain from. Check the expiry date by logging into that account, not by following the notice.

The backlink and guest-post offers

Emails offering to place links to your site on 'high authority' websites, or asking to publish a 'guest post' on your blog, are usually part of link schemes. Google's spam policies specifically name buying and selling links for ranking purposes as a violation. At best you waste money; at worst you add links that Google discounts or treats as manipulation. For a local business, links worth having come from real relationships: suppliers, the Chamber, local organisations you're part of, local press.

The verification code trick

One pitch deserves its own warning because it can cost you control of your listing. A caller, often claiming to help 'verify' or 'update' your Google profile, says Google is about to send you a code by text or email and asks you to read it back to them. That code is a sign-in or verification code for your account. Reading it out can hand the caller access to your Business Profile or your Google account, and getting it back can take weeks while your listing shows their changes.

The rule is simple and has no exceptions: never share a verification code with anyone who contacted you. No genuine company needs it. The same goes for passwords and for 'remote access' software a caller asks you to install. If you've already shared a code, change your Google account password straight away, check which users have access to your Business Profile and remove anyone you don't recognise.

So are any of them worth hearing?

Occasionally a cold approach comes from a real local business. The difference is usually obvious:

If a pitch passes all five, it's a sales approach, not a scam, and you can judge it like any other. If it fails one, you can stop listening.

How to cut down the calls

You can't stop them entirely, but you can reduce them. Register your business lines on the National Do Not Call Registry; it doesn't stop every caller, but legitimate companies honour it and it gives you grounds to report those that don't. Report scam calls to the FTC, and calls impersonating Google to Google. Use a form on your website rather than publishing a plain email address, and protect the form as we describe in how to stop contact form spam.

If you actually want an honest answer

The pitch works because it plants a real question: is my website doing its job? You deserve an answer to that from someone with nothing to sell you through fear. Our free website audit scans your speed, mobile setup, local search signals and security, and explains every finding in plain English, so you can judge the next pitch against the facts. If you'd like a person to tell you what matters and what doesn't, ask us.