McAfee SiteAdvisor Blog

"Pretty much everything is bad about this site...stay far away..."

Comment about coolwallpaper.com (SiteAdvisor analysis: coolwallpaper.com) by reviewer whotheheckcares.

"Whatever you do, DO NOT ENTER AN E-MAIL... inbox will be flooded with spam and crap. You probably won't get that free* gift."

Comment about freegiftworld.com (SiteAdvisor analysis: freegiftworld.com) by reviewer dylanglada.

As the above user comments indicate, our volunteer reviewers are anything but shy. And we like it that way. I’m David, the developer in charge of our user reviews functionality, and it’s my job to make sure that our users have a way to make their voice heard when it comes to Web safety.

From the beginning, we knew there had to be a forum for people to reaffirm, challenge, and supplement our automated, algorithmic safety testing of Web sites. Not only have user reviews provided a human touch that complements our analytic site data, but they also help keep us on our toes. There have been numerous instances where reviewers have found sites that are behaving badly and we have updated our rating of the sites accordingly.

We added the Reviewer Comments functionality to the Web site back in December of last year. Since then, reviewers have posted more than 16,000 reviews covering 11,000 unique Web sites. In the just the past week we've received about 1,500 new user reviews and ratings.

What’s New?

I’ve just released a new feature on the SiteAdvisor Web site called Reviewer Central. As the name implies, this new section showcases some of the best and most interesting content submitted by our users, and also serves as a forum to recognize reviewers themselves.

Among the new features you’ll find in Reviewer Central are:

• Sites on the brink: Calls attention to cases when a site is on the verge of having its rating changed as a result of user feedback. We look at what people are saying about different sites and try to find patterns where there is a conflict between what our automated results have shown and what people are saying. We then call attention to these sites to encourage additional input and debate among our users.

• Recent Reviews: highlights what sites people are commenting on right now. It shows the most recent posts and allows you to sort by the kind of sites you find most interesting. Do you love to rubberneck at the scenes of tragic computer-ruining exploits? Or do you like to commiserate with others who have been spam-bombed by some rogue ad serving site? Indulge yourself here.

• Top Reviewers: This section gives you an idea of who the most prolific and respected reviewers are and what they're talking about. Each reviewer has a reputation score based on a combination of how long they've been a reviewer, how many reviews they've posted, how accurate their ratings are, and most importantly, how other reviewers rate their reviews. Basic level reviewers can advance to designations of “Experienced” or “Expert” as their reputation increases over time.

I Know you Are, but What am I?

Does it really matter what users say about sites? Do we really care? Absolutely. For example, It was user feedback which alerted us to a whole class of sites which charge consumers for processing entries to the free U.S. green card lottery. Many of those sites were quite misleading in their claims, and after further analysis we gave most of them red ratings.

User feedback can also cause ratings to be upgraded. An example is the site albinoblacksheep.com (SiteAdvisor analysis: albinoblacksheep.com). The site originally received a red rating when our bots flagged a suspect download. The site's owner then wrote to us saying he had removed the bad download. Numerous albinoblacksheep fans also wrote in to say that they considered it a great site with nothing that should give it a red rating. This provided good supporting evidence that the bad download was indeed probably an inadvertent mistake. We have since changed the site's rating to green.

One of the best defenses against less than scrupulous Web sites is the power of a user community to spread the word and help others. Our reviewer areas are designed to give you a powerful way to have your voice heard and to directly affect the safety ratings of Web sites.

Whether you have just one gripe or kudo for a particular site, or whether you're committed to spreading the word about a particular aspect of Web safety for many sites, we hope you'll get involved and become a reviewer if you haven't already.

I'm excited to be releasing this first version of Reviewer Central. I know that we can continue to do more with this section of the Web site, so I'd love to hear your additional ideas and suggestions. Please leave us feedback either by responding to this blog entry below or by using our feedback page.

Thanks and enjoy.