{"id":2143573,"date":"2021-09-23T16:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T15:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2143573"},"modified":"2026-02-26T07:59:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T06:59:57","slug":"beware-of-upworks-freelancers-spoofing-your-pagespeed-insights-score","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/beware-of-upworks-freelancers-spoofing-your-pagespeed-insights-score\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware of Upwork&#8217;s Freelancers Fake \/ Spoofing Your Lighthouse Score !"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sadly, there are freelancers doing potentially harmful things to clients&#8217; websites.\u00a0Ashik Ishtiaque Emon promotes his services on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upwork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Upwork platform<\/a> with the slogan &#8220;95+ PageSpeed Insights score and load time under 2.5 seconds on ALL pages WITH 100% money-back guarantee?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He has used a &#8220;Fake\/Spoofing Lighthouse Score Method&#8221; on more than 300 clients websites charging an average of $300 for his services and earning over $90,000.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.upwork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Upwork<\/a> is aware of his activities and has earned commission of\u00a0 more than $18,000 from his fraudulent activities.<\/p>\n<p>This is what we discovered when we investigated a website optimized by Ashik Ishtiaque Emon:<\/p>\n<h2>Changes Made to Fake SpeedTest<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Asset Optimizer\u00a0 (Plugin organizer: available version in WordPress: 10.1.5, version was changed to: 22.1.4 to prevent updating. The plugin organizer settings are hidden from the dashboard and access is disabled).<\/li>\n<li>Asset Optimizer Critical CSS Helper (Plugin organizer doesn&#8217;t have any add on and you can&#8217;t find this plugin on the internet. It&#8217;s just a handmade plugin to put the broken version of the site in it for speed analyzers).<\/li>\n<li>Flying Scripts &#8211; Lazy Loads 3rd Party JavaScripts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" fifu-lazy=\"1\" fifu-data-sizes=\"auto\" fifu-data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=75&amp;resize=75&amp;ssl=1 75w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=100&amp;resize=100&amp;ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=150&amp;resize=150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=240&amp;resize=240&amp;ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=320&amp;resize=320&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=500&amp;resize=500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=640&amp;resize=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=800&amp;resize=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=1024&amp;resize=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=1280&amp;resize=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1&amp;w=1600&amp;resize=1600&amp;ssl=1 1600w\" class=\"wp-image-2143577 size-full aligncenter\" fifu-data-src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/desktop-1.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"Fake\/Spoofing Lighthouse Score\" width=\"607\" height=\"312\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<h2>Fake Waterfall Report Showing Just a Screenshot<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2143576\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 760px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" fifu-lazy=\"1\" fifu-data-sizes=\"auto\" fifu-data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=75&amp;resize=75&amp;ssl=1 75w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=100&amp;resize=100&amp;ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=150&amp;resize=150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=240&amp;resize=240&amp;ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=320&amp;resize=320&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=500&amp;resize=500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=640&amp;resize=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=800&amp;resize=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=1024&amp;resize=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=1280&amp;resize=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=1600&amp;resize=1600&amp;ssl=1 1600w\" class=\"wp-image-2143576 size-full\" fifu-data-src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/fake_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"Every speed analyzer tool sends a bot to the website to analyze it and show the report. Those bots have a name. e.g. \" width=\"750\" height=\"591\" the plugin organizer detects user and when those agents are from speed analyzer tools such as they get FAKE version of website without any n this freelancer gets score for both mobile title=\"\"><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Every speed analyzer tool sends a bot to the website to analyze it and show the report. Those bots have a name. e.g. &#8220;chrome-lighthouse&#8221; , &#8220;pingdom&#8221;, etc. So, the plugin organizer detects the user agents, and when those user agents are from speed analyzer tools such as lighthouse, they get a FAKE version of the website without any css. In this way, the freelancer gets a\u00a0 95+ score for both mobile and desktop.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Real Waterfall Showing All Site Assets<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2143578\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 760px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" fifu-lazy=\"1\" fifu-data-sizes=\"auto\" fifu-data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=75&amp;resize=75&amp;ssl=1 75w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=100&amp;resize=100&amp;ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=150&amp;resize=150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=240&amp;resize=240&amp;ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=320&amp;resize=320&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=500&amp;resize=500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=640&amp;resize=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=800&amp;resize=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=1024&amp;resize=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=1280&amp;resize=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1&amp;w=1600&amp;resize=1600&amp;ssl=1 1600w\" class=\"wp-image-2143578 size-full\" fifu-data-src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/real_waterfall.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"Real Waterfall Showing All Site Assets\" width=\"750\" height=\"541\" title=\"\"><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">When an unknown speed test is used all 212 requests and with a REAL page load time of 7.1 seconds are reported.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Cloaking is Dangerous<\/h2>\n<p>This is dangerous to the health of websites&#8217; SEO, as it is considered \u201ccloaking.\u201d Cloaking is defined by Google as \u201cthe practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines,\u201d and is specifically prohibited in their Webmaster Guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>Any action like this that violates Google\u2019s guidelines puts a site at risk for penalties, where the site can be demoted in, or even removed from, Google search results.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, most website owners aren\u2019t savvy enough to be able to double-check their freelancer\u2019s work in this manner, but the key takeaway here for business owners to know is that a perfect score on PageSpeed Insights, especially now that it\u2019s powered by Lighthouse\u2019s standards, is definitely too good to be true, and therefore likely not real.<\/p>\n<h2>Editorial Comment<\/h2>\n<p>We reported to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upwork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Upwork<\/a> that more than 300 of their clients had potentially been defrauded by Ashik Ishtiaque and requested that he be suspended from the Upwork Platform. We believe there may be several other freelancers on the Upwork platform using the &#8220;Fake\/Spoofing Lighthouse Score Method&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It seems that no action has been taken and that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upwork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Upwork&#8217;s<\/a> clients continue to be defrauded by purchasing optimizations carried out using the &#8220;Fake\/Spoofing Lighthouse Score Method&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upwork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Upwork<\/a> continues to profit from this &#8220;Fake\/Spoofing Lighthouse Score Method&#8221; by earning commissions.<\/p>\n<p>Upwork\u2019s platform does not comply with the EU GPDR regulations because clients can not modify or delete their reviews of freelancers\u2019 performance.<\/p>\n<p>Shannen of Upwork\u2019s legal department declined to comment on the results of our investigation and the fact that their platform fails to comply with European regulations.<\/p>\n<h2>Citations:<\/h2>\n<p>1 &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/googles-not-fooled-by-fake-lighthouse-scores\/417593\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Google\u2019s Not Fooled By Fake Lighthouse Scores<\/a> by Matt Southern of Search Engine Journal dated 26 August 2021.<\/p>\n<p>2 &#8211; Is Your Web Developer Spoofing Your PageSpeed Insights Score? by Pam Aungst dated 28 June 2019.<\/p>\n<p>3 &#8211; Google\u2019s John says Fake Lighthouse Scores Won\u2019t Help Rank Higher by Rudra Kasturi dated 1 September 2021.<\/p>\n<p>4 &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.erwinhofman.com\/blog\/could-and-should-i-fake-pagespeed-insights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Could and should I fake PageSpeed Insights?<\/a> by Erwin Hofman dated 5 March 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sadly, there are freelancers doing potentially harmful things to clients&#8217; websites.\u00a0Ashik Ishtiaque Emon promotes his services on the Upwork platform with the slogan &#8220;95+ PageSpeed Insights score and load time under 2.5 seconds on ALL pages WITH 100% money-back guarantee?&#8221; He has used a &#8220;Fake\/Spoofing Lighthouse Score Method&#8221; on more than 300 clients websites charging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1178,"featured_media":2150416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6988,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2150416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}