So by having Adobe products  on your computer, Adobe considers your computer their own. They sell the rights to other companies like McAfee to use Adobe products as a conduit to install other software and adware that you didn’t ask for.

A trojan does the same thing. It installs unwanted software on your computer. Adobe products install unwanted software on your computer like McAfee Security Scan Plus using Firefox to facilitate the install by calling it first a Firefox update.  McAfee participates in the process of installing unwanted software on your computer.

So what makes Adobe, Firefox and McAfee any different from an illegal trojan? Nothing except they are big companies and no one will pass legislation to make them stop installing unwanted software and adware on your computer.

These software companies are arrogant as hell. They make deals with each other to bundle their software and adware inside of other downloads. Many times they are basically hidden and insall automatically with the software you actually wanted. Some give the option to “opt out” of the extra download but it’s easy to miss. After all, you downloaded program A and should not have to read the fine print to make sure you are not also installing program B, C and D.

From Techie-Buzz.com

Techie Buzz Verdict:

Their suggestions are sound – if you have the money to pay for their solutions. Each recommendation is designed to offer McAfee a good chance to sell you something. This isn’t good free software – it’s a good marketing tool. I was very disappointed, and I only posted this review so that I can save others the trouble of downloading unwanted advertising. I would classify it as “Adware”.

Techie Buzz Rating: 1/5 (Poor)

Below is info from the McAfee website if you want to spend your time uninstalling McAfee Security Scan Plus adware after they installed it on your computer without your permission. After all, your time is their’s to waste because they have a big company and can do whatever they want with your computer and your time.

Back to all Corporate KnowledgeBase http://us.mcafee.com/en-us/local/docs/adobe_mssp_faq.pdf.

Corporate KnowledgeBase ID:

KB68706
Version: 3.0
Status:
Published
Last Modified:
June 03, 2011

Summary

McAfee Security Scan Plus is a free diagnostic tool that detects the security status of computers for antivirus software, firewall protection, and web security. It can co-exist with any existing security software.

For more information, see

Cause

Security Scan Plus was probably installed when another McAfee program or third-party application such as Adobe Reader was installed.

To avoid installing Security Scan Plus, the next time you install or update Adobe Reader or similar software, ensure that you deselect the Free McAfee Security Scan Plus option under Also install.

NOTE: This option is selected by default.

Solution

To remove McAfee Security Scan Plus:

1. Click Start, Programs, McAfee Security Scan Plus.
2. Select Uninstall.

Pretty simple. And I doubt I’m the only one who feels that way. I’m really hoping Facebook rids their site of facebook spammers. But, there are other social networking websites to join who do have it under control.

have you been receiving a lot of Facebook spam?

I find a template i like. I order it. Simple right? No. I even have to look up my bank’s phone number to include in the form. No big deal right? Just a little more time. A little more chance for me to change my mind. But I do it.

Then I get an email saying that since they could not reach me immediately by phone, (I was on with a client), they can’t send me my download link for the template I purchased.

Does TemplateMonster.com actually want to make a sale? Do they actually want more business? Why not go ahead and ask for an in-person appointment while you are at it. Require the names of my children, my mother’s maiden name, a secret question, the street my family lived on when I was born, where my mother was born, and to top it off, put in a captcha that is really hard to read.

TemplateMonster.com, you need to understand, you are not doing us a favor by allowing us to purchase what you sell. We do you a favor if we decide to buy something from you.

EDIT: Oh wait. It gets better. The email says I must respond right away if I want the template I paid for. But when I email them, the email bounces. So now I had to get their number and call them.

A lot of work just to buy something from someone. The exact way NOT to set up your purchasing system.

Chances are, not much, because we don’t talk about it often enough. But there are several things about security and they can all affect how well you rank in the search engines.

Quick security checklist for webmasters

Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 12:34 AM
Written by Nathan Johns, Search Quality Team

In recent months, there’s been a noticeable increase in the number of compromised websites around the web. One explanation is that people are resorting to hacking sites in order to distribute malware or attempt to spam search results. Regardless of the reason, it’s a great time for all of us to review helpful webmaster security tips.

Obligatory disclaimer: While we’ve collected tips and pointers below, and we encourage webmasters to “please try the following at home,” this is by no means an exhaustive list for your website’s security. We hope it’s useful, but we recommend that you conduct more thorough research as well.

The Rest of The List of things to do about website security and how it can affect you with the search engines here

A lot of people are also not aware that Google has more than one blog. Most people read the Google Webmaster Blog where the post I mentioned above was written, but Google also has a blog about Security.

BE HELPFUL

Be helpful? What does that mean? I don’t get it. Hunh? are a few of the responses to my answer, so of course I will explain.

Let’s say you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field. One great way to do so is to join forums that are related to your field. Introduce yourself and give a little history when you first join so people know a little about you.

Then browse through the forum and look for questions people are asking. Answer their questions as fully as you can. If you do not know the answer, use the search engines and find out what the answer is. Be courteous when answering. Provide links to where they can find out more information and confirm your answer.

This accomplishes five things. 1. You were helpful. 2. You may have learned something new by looking up the answer. 3. You now have a bookmark for a website you may need later. 4. You have established yourself as someone who can provide answers. and 5. Other people saw how helpful you were.

#5 is probably the most important of all. Some people read your answer, saw how helpful you were, and probably visited the website in your signature and are now a potential customer.

Whenever someone calls you, emails you, or comments on your blog with a question, take the time, make the time, to answer them even when it doesn’t make you any money. Once people start taking your advice, most will help you in return and won’t mind helping you make money later.

Sign up for affiliate programs that pay well. Things you know the people you deal with might need, like web hosting, web design, seo, etc. When people are asking your advice, ask them if they need hosting or whatever. If they say yes, ask them to use your affiliate link to sign up. It costs them nothing. It makes you money. And since you have been so helpful, they do not mind helping you make a little money.

Make sure the places you refer them to are actually good companies. Again, you are being helpful by referring them to something worthwhile and you make money doing it.

Learn how to search the web. I don’t mean just going to google and typing something in. Learn advanced search methods and other sources besides just search engines to find what you are looking for.

Once you know how to really search the web, you can be even more helpful. You will be able to find things other people cannot find. This valuable skill can make you more helpful to others and make you more money.

If you provide a service or product, provide free consultations and offer free information for your potential customers. Find non-competing services, products, free coupons, and other things that you know your target audience will also be interested in.

Take a little time and find these things for the people you wish to do business with and you will soon learn how much they appreciate you and want to do business with you.

So many of us get busy and view some of these things as a waste of our time. I could be talking to a paying client right now instead of this person. I can’t believe this person keeps asking me questions and they haven’t even bought anything.

Yes, you do have to find the right balance, because you do have a business to run. But taking a little time each day or each week to just be helpful to others or adopting an overall philosophy of being helpful will make you more money in the long run than only focusing on “What’s in it for me”.

Some people you help won’t appreciate it at all. They may turn out to be a total jerk after you have given freely of your time and expertise. But that is their problem, not yours, and they will wish they still had you to help them later. Most people you help will respond in kind and appreciate your efforts.

They will refer their friends to you and whenever possible, they will choose your services over another provider, even if the other provider offers it at a better price.

So, how do you make more money on the net?

BE HELPFUL.

Example: “I need high quality articles of 500 words or more each written with SEO in mind. I am willing to pay $1.50 per article.”

Some go on to say they want 2.5% keyword density while another will say 6% keyword density and others have other density requirements. The Bottom line is, that tells me they are the ones who are dense.

They read some EBook, or whatever, that told them what the proper percentage is for keyword density. No one can give you an exact percentage. Those that do give out advice on that and quote a specific percentage are almost as dense as the people who believe them.

You are not going to get high quality articles written for $1.50. I run an article writing service and my prices are on the low end of the scale at $30 per article. That is extremely cheap for well-written articles. Anything less than that price is likely to be keyword-stuffed drivel that is not worth the time to submit anywhere.

But many people who think they understand article marketing don’t really care about quality. They want a large number of articles with that perfect keyword density they read about.

Here are 10 things you need to understand about article marketing. Obviously, there is a ton of people out there doing what they believe is article marketing who do not have a clue.

1. Target your audience. If you target the American Market for your products and services, then having someone who does not understand how to sell products to Americans and who doesn’t write like an American write your article is just totally worthless.

2. Everything on the Internet is permanent. If you are hiring a ghostwriter then your name is going on these articles with links to your company website. When readers read the poorly written articles that are stuffed with keywords and look like a boob wrote them, they are going to think you are the boob that wrote them and your company’s image suffers.

3. Having articles written and submitting them to directories is not what article marketing is about. This is where most people’s understanding of article marketing stops. Article Directories are there to provide quality content to webmasters who want to use articles in their websites. The tradeoff of giving a link back to the owner of that article is the price they pay for the use of the content.

4. Article Directories are not there to increase your link popularity. Just submitting articles to article directories does increase your link popularity a little. However, these directories are not websites that are related to your topic. Websites that might use that article are likely related to your website’s topic. Therefore, unless the articles are good enough that people want to re-post them on related websites then you are missing the whole article marketing boat.

5. Long-term value. Buying a bunch of cheap articles and doing mass submissions will not give you the long-term value, which article marketing, can and will do if done properly. A well-written article submitted to just one website can give you more link popularity and direct traffic than 100 poorly written articles that are mass submitted.

6. High quality articles have a snowball effect that lasts for a very long time. As more and more websites use the article as content you will see your link popularity, grow. Each of them becomes a related website linking to you.

7. It takes time to see the real effects of good article marketing. The longer your article is out there, the more it is used by other webmasters and the more your link popularity grows. It happens a little at a time just like the search engines like for a websites link popularity to grow. Getting 1000 links to your website overnight can cause your website to rank lowers in the search engines rather than higher.

8. Direct Traffic. If the writer of your article does not know how to sell product or make a rational point that leads a reader to WANT to click the links in the footer, then again you are missing part of the value of article marketing and are wasting your money. Article marketing can drive traffic directly to your website if they are written properly.

I’m not talking about an article that just promotes your website or product. Webmasters will not use those and article directories will not accept them. However, if you wrote a guide to filing a patent and in the article advised they consult an attorney, then you have written an informative article that puts the idea in the reader’s head that they need a lawyer to file a patent. In addition, the links are right there in the footer to your legal services. How convenient!

9. If the person writing the article does not really understand SEO, then you are again missing a major part of article marketing. There is no set percentage that your keywords should appear. They should be mentioned where possible but not in a way that detracts from the quality of the article itself. Reader first, SEO second. Some writers really know how to do this and it is second nature to them to write this way. Webmasters who might want to use it as content do care that it contains the right keywords, but they will not use an article that is written poorly and that is an obvious attempt to spam the keywords into the page.

10. Good writers who understand sales, SEO, and know how to write well deserve to be paid well. If you want quality articles that you are not ashamed to put your name on, then you have to pay for it.

Some of you out there that might read this article really don’t care what they put their names on. In that case, this article is not written for you. Go and keep doing your thing out there. When you decide you really want to try to be successful come back and read this again. Bookmark it where you found it right now, read it in six months, and see if you understand it then.

For those of you who do want real quality and want to have all of the advantages that article marketing can give you and who do care what their name gets attached to, just remember that good writers need to be paid what they are worth. I hope this article has helped you understand what article marketing is really all about.

Need Articles or Content written for you?

This is where a guy named Todd Andrlik ranks marketing blogs by a system he created there. I decided to look at how he ranks blogs and here is the explanation from their about page;

Todd Points (1 to 15): As the only subjective measure in the Power 150 algorithm, 1 to 15 opinion points were assigned to each blog. Todd Andrlik values frequent, relevant, creative and high-quality content. The use of audio, video and graphics is also heavily weighted in the Todd Points.

Frequent is good. Relative is good. Creative is good. And High-Quality, well, if it is frequent, relative, and creative, wouldn’t that be high-quality. Now he heavily weighs the use of graphics, video, and audio. Not sure why that would make an SEO Blog more relevant. It doesn’t matter, this is the subjective part of their formula for ranking blogs anyway. So this 15 points is based on whether Todd likes your blog or not. And The Power 150 is Todd’s Blog so he can give you points if he wants to.

Yahoo InLinks (1 to 30): Much like Technorati’s InLinks count, Yahoo uses its Site Explorer to tabulate the number of links to a particular blog. We then scale this number down to a 30-point scale.

Yup. Gotta get those Yahoo Links. Kind of surprised that Yahoo Links are counted high but not Google links. They do add pagerank later as a factor, but Yahoo is 1-30 points while google page rank can only get you 10 points. In 1995 that would have made sense.

Technorati Ranking (1 to 20): Technorati ranking analyzes the number of sites pointing to a particular blog. The more link sources referencing your blog, the higher the Technorati ranking. Similar to the Bloglines Subscribers value, Technorati ranking ranges were determined (i.e., top 9,000, top 10,000, top 20,000, etc.) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 20) that was used in the Power 150 algorithm.

Technorati Authority (1 to 20): Much like the InLinks count, Technorati’s Authority count is the number of blogs (as opposed to individual links) that link to a particular blog. This number is then scale down to a 20-point scale.

Technorati InLinks (1 to 20): Technorati tallies the number of links to a particular blog, and we then scale that number down to a 20-point scale.

And even more interesting is that if you do well in Technorati, you can get as much as 60 points! Google is worth 10 points and technorati is worth 60?

Alexa Points (1 to 15): Alexa ranks sites with an algorithm that incorporates page views and reach (the percentage of all web users who have visited that particular site). For the Power 150, we take that rank and assign it a proportional score between 1 and 15 and factor it into a blog’s total score.

Ahh the Alexa Points. You even get more for doing well in Alexa than you do for doing well in Google. Alexa counts how many people with an alexa toolbar visit your website, then use that sampling to decide how Internet users worldwide behave. Know anyone who uses the Alexa toolbar? I don’t. I just don’t take much stock in what Alexa says.

Bloglines Subscribers (1 to 10): Bloglines displays the number of feed subscribers. Subscriber ranges were determined (i.e., more than 20, more than 30, etc.) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 15) that was used in the Power 150 algorithm.

Wow. Bloglines. Cool. What about Blog Catalog? Blogged.com? or Other blog directories? I guess Todd has decided he likes Bloglines best, so we should all like Bloglines best and how we do in other blog directories doesn’t really matter.

Google PageRank (0 to 10): Google PageRank is a link-analysis algorithm that interprets web links and assigns a numerical weighting (0 to 10) to each site. High-quality sites receive a higher PageRank. The actual PageRank number was used in the Power 150 ranking algorithm.

So a blog with a page rank of 6 gets 6 points. But you can get up to 30 points for yahoo link pop and up to 60 points if you do well at technorati. Wow, Todd, don’t you like Google?

Collective Intellect (0 to 10): Collective Intellect is a social media analytics company that works with brands to evaluate consumer opinion, measure buzz, identify customer sentiment and manage corporate reputations at the industry, company, brand, campaign and messaging levels. For the Power 150, Collective Intellect’s authority ranking uses a patent-pending algorithm to calculate an author’s authority on a topic, including such measures as link-analysis between on-topic posts, topic density, author’s percent of contribution to the topic, number of comments and post quality.

First I’ve heard of them, but went to their website to look and here is what they say they do.

Customers use our technology to:

track information related to stocks and investing
support public relations and investor relations activities
facilitate customer support outreach programs
create product management market research feedback programs
develop interactive forums where customer relationships can be nurtured

Ok. I’m still not sure how this applies to ranking SEO and marketing blogs per say, but I’m sure Todd could explain it to you.

I decided not to submit my blogs or those of my clients there. Nothing wrong with them. Nothing wrong with Todd creating his own ranking system and ranking blogs according to what he or she thinks is important. Really, anyone with a blog could create there own ranking system and list blogs according to what they think is important.

It’s just funny how the Internet allows people to be important just because they say they are. I’m going to build the Universal Extreme Ultimate Beyond Power 1000 and creating my own ranking system.

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