Phishing email, ostensibly from Google, warns of non-existent errors

[tangor]

Ostensibly from g to a site that has ZERO g stuff of any kind and never had an account etc...

Paraphrased:

"Recently your site is blowing 404s out the wahzoo for our mobile thingie. If it works okay for your desktop stuff fix it, moron, else we will consider it cloaking."

Well, the site works perfectly with desktop (and phones), Xenu confirms and so this makes me wonder if this a phish thing ... had a link to g for "more info" ...

Which I did not click. Obviously.

The site in question has NEVER had any ties to g ... other than they found it years ago and generally places pretty high. So this out of the blue kind of makes me wonder.

Just curious (not doing anything about it as there is nothing to do ... though I did find 2 broken IMAGES when I looked.

Mod's note: Changed original title...
"Has anyone got one of these?"
...for clarity.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 2:13 am (utc) on Nov 26, 2018]
[edit reason] Made title more descriptive [/edit]

[phranque]

if you examine the email headers you should be able to determine if the email originated at a legitimate google smtp server.

[lucy24]

if you examine the email headers

For that matter, if you mouse-over the “google” link you should be able to determine if it really will take you to google, which seems like more relevant information for even less effort.

[tangor]

It goes to a g gmail ... which is another reason I am suspicious.

As I said, I will not address anything (as there is nothing to address). I wanted to know if others have received anything like this.

[aristotle]

I just got ma confusing email which seems to say that a company in China needs to register a domain name that is already registered to me. It also says that this company has already registered the same "keyword" that forms this domain name. Then it says that it is urgent that I contact them immediately to resolve the problem and avoid legal action.

In fact I did register this domain about 15 years ago and currently have it renewed in advance for the next three years.

Does anyone have any suggestions? At this point I intend to ignore this, but am a little concerned.

[lucy24]

At this point I intend to ignore this

Sounds like a plan.

[Robert Charlton]

aristotle, IANAL, but issues of international trademarks and "cybersquatting" can get complex, particularly with regard to the US and China. If the Chinese site can show prior and continuous use in the US of a word as a registered "trademark" (as opposed to a "keyword"), then they may have a claim. I doubt very much that this is the case, and that this is simply a fishing expedition, "f" rather than "ph", in the old sense of the word... looking for keyword domains that can be picked off.

It's possible, though, that they there's been a loss in translation regarding the distinction between "trademark" and "keyword", so you may need to pay some attention... perhaps check out the meaning of "UDRP" and "cybersquatting".

Further discussion, of the question, though, more properly belongs in our Domain Name forum, not in Google SEO News.

[aristotle]

Thanks I've started a thread in the Domain Names forum at:
[webmasterworld.com ]
Over there they say that this is a common scam.

But the email is in poor English, so you make a good point about registering a keyword could really mean registering a trademark. But I still think that it's probably nothing to worry about, so at this point I'm not going to do anything