A cold email pitched “AI search visibility” to a marketing manager — who called it a scam and told the sender to watch Dennis Yu videos instead. Here’s what happened when we actually checked the claims.
The Cold Email That Started It All
On April 3, 2026, Infinity Exteriors Marketing Manager Ethan Van De Hey received an unsolicited email from someone claiming his roofing company wasn’t showing up in ChatGPT recommendations. The sender pitched fixing “content and authority structuring issues” — with a guarantee — so Infinity Exteriors could start capturing sales from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity.
Ethan’s reply was blunt: “This SEO AI ChatGPT stuff is a scam.” He told the sender to watch Dennis Yu videos and “start an agency that is actually trying to help people and not take their money.”
That response landed in Dennis Yu’s inbox — and what followed was a credibility analysis that exposes a pattern playing out across the digital marketing industry right now.
The Rise of “AI SEO” Snake Oil
A new wave of agencies is cold-emailing business owners with a fear-based pitch: your competitors are showing up in ChatGPT and you’re not. They promise to fix “content and authority structuring” so you rank in AI-powered search tools. As Dennis has discussed on the Marketing Mechanic show, these pitches are proliferating — and the irony is that the people making them often can’t demonstrate the very authority they claim to build for others.
The core problem isn’t that AI search optimization doesn’t matter. It’s that trust and authority in AI systems work the same way they’ve always worked in digital marketing: you build them through genuine expertise, consistent content, and real third-party validation. There are no shortcuts, and there are no secret techniques that override the fundamentals.
The Credibility Audit: Practice What You Preach
After Ethan forwarded the cold email thread, Dennis conducted a thorough credibility analysis of the sender — applying the same content and authority standards that any AI system would use to determine trustworthiness. The findings were revealing.
The cold email came from a throwaway .info domain with zero web presence — the only Google result was a DNS lookup. The domain redirected to a completely different niche site. This is a classic cold-email-at-scale tactic: using disposable domains so the main business domain doesn’t get flagged for spam. For someone selling trust and authority, that approach undermines both.
The sender’s own website had multiple 404 errors on key pages, including flagship blog posts that were indexed in Google but returned errors when visited. That’s basic SEO hygiene — the digital equivalent of a dentist with missing teeth.
Social proof was thin: a LinkedIn profile with only 4 followers, a Facebook page with roughly 183 likes, zero Trustpilot reviews, and a 0.0 rating. For someone claiming over 15 years of experience and hundreds of clients, the numbers didn’t add up.
The sender’s blog featured self-promotional “best of” articles where their own company was listed among top experts — a well-known SEO manipulation tactic, not genuine third-party validation. Geography was inconsistent across platforms, with different locations listed on LinkedIn, Facebook, Trustpilot, and the company website. Multiple brand names across different niches suggested a scattered operation rather than a focused authority.
The Irony Test: Does the AI Even Agree?
Perhaps the most telling finding was what happened when you actually asked ChatGPT about the sender’s brands. The AI’s own assessment was lukewarm at best, describing the operation as a “transition play” from traditional SEO to AI search. Even the AI tools the sender claimed to optimize for could see through the positioning.
This is the fundamental problem with the “AI SEO” pitch: AI systems evaluate the same trust signals that have always mattered. They look at consistent identity, genuine authority, real reviews, third-party mentions from credible sources, and content that actually helps people. You can’t game your way into AI recommendations any more than you could sustainably game Google’s algorithm.
What Actually Builds Trust in AI Systems
The principles that determine whether ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, or Perplexity recommend a business are not new — they’re the same principles that BlitzMetrics and Dennis Yu have taught for years through frameworks like Dollar a Day and the Content Factory.
Real authority comes from doing the work: publishing genuinely helpful content, earning mentions from credible third-party sources, maintaining consistent identity across platforms, collecting authentic reviews from real customers, and having your expertise validated by recognized institutions and publications. As Dennis explains on the Marketing Mechanic, so many people are trying to pitch “ranking in ChatGPT” when they themselves don’t rank — because they haven’t done the foundational work that AI systems rely on to determine who deserves to be recommended.
The Standards of Excellence framework captures this simply: if you want to be seen as trustworthy by AI or humans, you need to actually be trustworthy. That means your website works. Your content is accurate. Your social profiles are consistent. Your reviews are real. Your expertise is validated by others, not just by yourself.
The Takeaway for Business Owners
If someone cold-emails you promising to get your business ranking in ChatGPT, apply the same credibility test to them that AI systems apply to everyone. Check their own website for broken links. Look at their social proof. See if credible third parties validate their expertise. Ask ChatGPT about them and see what comes back.
Ethan Van De Hey had the right instinct. The best defense against AI SEO snake oil is the same skill that’s always mattered in marketing: the ability to distinguish between people who do the work and people who just talk about it.
Dennis Yu is the CEO of BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that has managed campaigns for organizations including the Golden State Warriors, Nike, and the American Red Cross. He is an internationally recognized lecturer in digital marketing and the creator of the Dollar a Day strategy. Ethan Van De Hey is the Marketing Manager at Infinity Exteriors, a roofing company serving Wisconsin and Northern Illinois.
Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is the CEO of Local Service Spotlight, a platform that amplifies the reputations of contractors and local service businesses using the Content Factory process. He is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other brands.
Dennis has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs by partnering with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Through Local Service Spotlight, he teaches the Dollar a Day strategy and Content Factory training to help local service businesses enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring.
Dennis coaches young adult agency owners serving plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians, and believes there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers must be certified.