Web of Trust is a web site dedicated to informing its users about bad web sites that could potentially cause problems. Whether that be spammers, potential malware, or any other danger that lurks on the web. Just one problem though, it doesn't actually work. Well I shouldn't say that, it works, kind of in the same way the A-Bomb works.
Allow me to provide some back story.
I have been working on a site for doing code reviews called Codetique.com. I purchased the domain through my web host in January of 2011. I held the domain for about a year and finally started working on the actual application at the beginning of 2012. I have done a few minor releases and today came to discover from a helpful redditor, that my site has a terrible reputation with Web of Trust. Which was a bummer but considering I had never heard of it before today I figured it would be fairly easy to fix or ignore. Then several people made similar comments so clearly this WOT reputation holds some merit.
It seems that around 2009 the domain was accused of spamming in some variety and blacklisted by a "third-party trusted source". All of that is probably true, I didn't own the domain at that time and I have no way of knowing who did, it was available when I purchased it. Anyway I own the domain now so I created an account on WOT and setup my site to prove that I owned it. If you check out the reputation page for my domain the "third-party trusted source" link doesn't even work!? So not only does your reputation not change even after 3 years but the "third-party trusted sources" that WOT uses don't exist anymore. Yet this tool that supposedly millions of people are blissfully using is passing judgements on domains without any kind of current references.
The fact that WOT is using 3 year old sources as Gospel is bad enough, but I can't get any of the past bad reviewers to come back and alter their review. It was 3 years ago they have probably moved on to other things. I did file for a new review and got one person to check it out and leave good feedback but the WOT algorithm is too dumb to properly weigh one current review more than several past ones so the reputation of Codetique.com of WOT is still bad.
If the algorithm doesn't work properly for improving reputation I would be very surprised if it worked for hurting reputation either. Meaning if hypothetically Facebook were to go bankrupt in a few years (it's a stretch but stranger things have happened). A malicious site could be put in it's place and WOT would give it an amazing rating and no matter how many times it was marked as bad it would probably still have an amazing rating because of all the prior entries that marked it as good are weighted just as heavily as any current entries that mark it as bad.
Bottom line if you are using WOT tools you are a fool. Not only are you letting yourself be frightened away from potentially good sites but you are buying into the mind set that nothing on the web changes.
I think the most annoying thing of this whole situation is that there is no one to contact directly to have issues like the non-existing "third-party trusted source" fixed. I just wonder how many other great sites have poor reputations because WOT isn't smart enough to realize that domains can change in an instant.
If you want to help me out you can give my site a positive rating at http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/codetique.com. But an even better thing to do would be to stop using their tools and tell anyone who does use them what a joke they actually are.
MyWOT does not provide true and accurate information about a web site, as any user (trusted or not) can open an account at MyWOT and vote against any web site he does not like.
ReplyDeleteAnyone can devalue your web site at MyWOT, when he dislikes your opinion. MyWOT can not and does not want to distinguish between "dislike a website" and "distrust a website". For them both is the same. That's very dangerous and will harm your business. This way hundreds of well reputed websites with excellent content are deep in the red.
If any of your websites is on a free web hoster's subdomain then it gets the same bad trustworthiness as the web hoster, no matter whether the site is a bad one containing malware or a good one containing useful information. By doing so, MyWOT has destroyed the reputation of thousands of excellent websites.
You have to act on your behalf to raise your reputation: You have to tell all the people you know to register with MyWOT and to rate your site positively.
Don't do that! That's just a clever marketing trick to gain new users for MyWOT, while your site will remain deep in the red.
Be aware that just posting an excellent review does not get you out of the dirt.
If you have opened an account at MyWOT be careful to not post critics about them. They censor! That's why MyWOT is excellent rated when checking them on their own service, but has a bad reputation among the web in forums and blogs.
I absolutely do not recommend MyWOT. Use any malware detection service, virus scanner or similar tool instead. They all provide real and true trustworthiness. MyWOT does not.
WOT trashed my website for no reason. It's a small family business that has been around for a long time and it has an excellent reputation. The deeper I got with the WOT people, the worse my site's ratings got. They seem to like being malicious and arbitrary. I wouldn't trust them any further than I could throw them. I curse the day I got involved with these people. I wouldn't be surprised if they are a bunch of teenage boys just getting their jollies out of trashing people's businesses.
DeleteWOT is useless since it is not a professional security tool, anyone can submit their rating thus the sites with bad reputation are usually the ad company home site or file hosting sites
ReplyDeleteLot of frustrated people out there who don’t know what to do with all the bad rating mywot gives them. Here are some who are trying to do some about it. Mywot reviews
ReplyDeletehttps://www.mywot.com/en/faq
ReplyDeleteRead and inform yourself !
The rest is a malicious agenda , from people who have misunderstood or are rated negative but in a valid manner
Best wishes !
LOL Fuck you.
DeleteAs JimDoesCode points out, the key to any reputation system is the rating algorithm and the logistics surrounding membership. If a reputation system doesn't have a strong algorithm that resists gaming and the organization is not responsive to the people using it, the result is worse for the Internet at large.
ReplyDeleteBad information with an unwarranted badge of credibility is much worse than no information at all.
Dave Hess
Founder Trust-Inn.com
I've found out that the reason it is so hard to change the automatic negative rating is that some users get extra rating ability equal to 1000 of regular users. It is highly biased and is censorship at its worst. The way that they've done their algorithm is that some sites - like government sites - are all automatically trustworthy....unless it is a site they don't like...like Iran. Bottom line is that it is self-appointed internet policing that is subject to bias, control and manipulation. BUT, of course you can purchase their badge of trust for a fee. Extortion is what it is called. Don't rate anyone - ignore them entirely and spread the word about this malicious product.
ReplyDeleteDespite MyWot's claims, I think there are reasons to be very cautious about MyWot's culture. The biggest obvious problem is that they have automated software tools where some influential people rate ridiculously large numbers of websites per day without even having personal contact or knowledge of the business. I think the people that use MyWot the most are good people, but there are some heavy users that really try and manipulate the rankings. Those heavy hitter's use of the site smacks of the type of mentality of sites like Buy Twitter Followers Reviews where there are ways to really manipulate rankings in the short term. As with all services online, MyWot is something that should be considered, but shouldn't be the end-all-be-all final point of anybody's research online.
ReplyDeleteThis site is nothing but a scam to get you to buy a badge. They contacted me about my websites bad rating! And told me if I bought a badge for my site my rating would improve. Well morons I have no websites!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.affhelper.com/mywot-reviews-exposed/
MYWOT are scum they have fixed my site, negative comments that are not relative and have now blocked ratings and comments so its stuck. Fuck you mywot
ReplyDeleteI would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to start my own BlogEngine blog now. Really the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it. reputation repair
ReplyDelete