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rickfrombrookly
Contributor
Message 1 of 3

What to do when SiteAdvisor offers no clue about why it has red flagged your site?

It is usually in the days immediately following Christmas that many people research and book their vacations to South America for the following year. I was surprised and shocked to see that my site (http://fertur-travel.com) has been been marked with the red icon.

There is no clue offered as to what hazardous risks or annoying behaviors McAfee  has determined are emanating from my site to warrant this designation. For years, we enjoyed a green rating. I'm trying to get to the bottom of what could have prompted this.

I've written to support@siteadvisor.com asking for immediate clarification. I see from their Webmaster info page (http://www.siteadvisor.com/webmasters/index.html) that I am looking at a minimum of 5-10 business days for resolution.

I really hope their "reputation analysis" that "found potential security risks" is based on some actual threat that will be explained to me promptly. I'm more than eager to correct any legitimate security risk. But this red X is truly harming my family business.

Is there any other action I can take to expedite this process?

2 Replies
rahulsingh
Contributor III
Message 2 of 3

Re: What to do when SiteAdvisor offers no clue about why it has red flagged your site?

Have you tried to call the support lines @ mcafee? they maybe to able to contact the Avert team internally.

rickfrombrookly
Contributor
Message 3 of 3

Re: What to do when SiteAdvisor offers no clue about why it has red flagged your site?

Hi Alan,
Definitely don't yank the HTACCESS. Let's see what McAfee support identifies as the supposed risk factor.
(Google PR wouldn't be effected; it was Google Webmaster Tools that recommended the GZIP in the first place.)
The McAfee Web page says they will be in touch within one business day, which means by tomorrow or Tuesday. I've been reading up on SiteAdvisor, and it gets some very critical consumer ratings for false positives, so I'm betting a glitch in McAfee's system is the culprit here.
It's more than irritating that they could be screwing a legitimate business and the only form of redress is with an automated email system that takes days, if not weeks. I'm going to call McAfee's toll free numbers and see where that gets me to expedite the process.
I'm also going to copy this correspondence to the McAfee Community Forum. (Hey, everyone out there, BeGlobal is a top-notch, extremely affordable English-speaking Web Design and SEO company based in Lima, Peru! I can't recommend them enough!)
Thanks again Alan.
Rick

Alan La Rue BeGlobal wrote:

Hi,

Okay.. I know more now. Yes.. Ricardo uploaded one line of code to the http
access, and this may well be the reason behind the alert. That said, neither
Yahoo nor Google are flagging the page, and since there is nothing askew in
what Ricardo uploaded, it seems to be a glitch in McAffee`s system. The line
of code he uploaded basically tells the search engines that the gzip is
"habilitado", and once back from our holidays, Ricardo´s intention was to
continue working on the project, which includes resizing photos, among other
things.

I am running a ranking report, but it does not look like this is affecting
rankings at all; now, whether those running McAffee are choosing not to
click in is another matter altogether.

My suggestion is to let it ride for a while to see what happens. Or, if you
like, Ricardo can pull the code, but again, since it is not malicious in any
way, shape or form, it seems kind of ridiculous.

I am copying Ricardo on this response.


Saludos,
Alan


-----Mensaje original-----
De: Rick Vecchio [mailto:rick@fertur-travel.com]
Enviado el: Saturday, December 26, 2009 6:31 PM
Para: Alan La Rue BeGlobal
Asunto: [Fwd: urgent request for information about fertur-travel.com]

Hi Alan,
Hope you had a good Christmas with the family.
I'm writing because of an alarming development with McAfee/Yahoo
SiteAdvisor. It's suddenly red-flagged the fertur site the dreaded red X of
death.
I see that the HTACCESS file for the site was updated on Wednesday. I'm
presuming that was something your folks did as part of the GZIP work we had
discussed.
Do you think there's any way it has something to do with this new
designation from McAfee?
This is a real bummer... I'm reading up on false positives from McAfee, and
it's apparently a long, frustrating process to get corrected; a minimum of
10 working days, and a maximum of forever.
Nos hablamos,
Rick

--
Rick Vecchio
Director Development & Marketing
Fertur Peru Travel
+51-1-242-1900 http://www.fertur-travel.com
Calle Schell Nº 485 Miraflores/Lima-Perú
IATA, IGLTA, ASTA, APAVIT
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