The software application honors fraud

The computer program accepts fraud

I just created a brand-new product. This new product has already received 16 different awards and recommendations from websites where users may download software. Some of them even sent me encouraging emails with the subject line "Terrific work, we're truly happy!" The fact that my software application was recognized for its excellence should make me happy, yet it doesn't really operate. When you consider that this is only a text file with the phrase "this application accomplishes nothing at all" repeated a few times and then renamed as an.exe, it is hardly noteworthy. The description "This program performs nothing at all" is included in the PAD data that described the software application.

Even the software's name, "awardmestars," gave it away somewhat. Additionally, it still received 16 "awards."

A few of them seem to be rather amazing, but none merit the electrons needed to display them.

The simple answer is that certain download sites provide prizes for every piece of software they get. In exchange, they want the author to display the award and provide a link to them. The backlink might therefore increase traffic to their website both directly (by clicking the award website link) and indirectly (with improved page rank from the inbound links). In order to impress prospective consumers, the author receives various honors, and the download website sees more traffic.

This practice is unethical and blatantly dishonest. There is no distinction between good quality software and any type of outdated garbage that someone was willing to upload to a download site. The download websites who engage in this trickery should apologize. Similar to this, any author or business who displays one of these "awards" is either being intentionally dishonest or ignorant (at best) (at worst).

My doubts were first sparked by the many 5 star awards my PerfectTablePlan program received. When I first visited these sites, every one of the other programs on them seemed to have received five stars as well.

I also saw that a few of my weak competitors were proudly exhibiting websites brimming with five-star ratings. I only caught three or four of the celebrity awards. Something had a strange odor. Being trained as a scientist, I decided to do a little experiment to test whether a wholly worthless piece of software would receive any awards.

After seeing many recommendations for the rundenko.com submit-everywhere. com entry service on the ASP forums, I sent Mykola Rudenko an email to see if he might assist with my little experiment. To my amazement, he graciously agreed to help by offering to send "awardmestars" to each of the 1033 sites in their database.

The information I gathered two weeks after submissions opened shows that "awardmestars" is now listed on 218 websites, is pending on 394 websites, and has been rejected by 421 websites. About 7% of the websites that sold the software informed me through email that it had received an award (I'm not sure how many actually displayed the award without doing so). With 394 pending sites, it has a good chance of winning a lot more accolades. Many of the submissions that were rejected were rejected on the basis that "The site does not accept items of this type" (it was described as a utility) rather than on the basis of strong arguments.

The reality is that many download sites are little more than digital dung heaps that use phony awards, questionable search engine optimization, and material that has been stolen from PAD files in an ineffective attempt to earn a few pennies from Google Adwords. Hopefully, the always improving internet search engine will undoubtedly eliminate these bottom-feeders, leaving only the better websites. I think that top quality download sites continue to operate. However, the importance of quality, category, and additional online material has to be emphasized even more (e.g. testimonials). Whether such a corporation has a chance of succeeding,

I'm not familiar with. However, it seems to work in the MacOSX world where there are fewer download websites, but they are all better and have more user engagement.

Some owners of download websites have emailed me to say things like "really hilarious" or "stop wasting my time." They deserve praise for taking the time to review each submission. The next time you search for software, I advise you to rank their websites highly in your listing:

When I presented Lothar Jung of download-tipp. de a draft of this article, he responded as follows:.

"As a website creator, the disadvantage for me is that if you don't give every piece of software five stars, you won't get as many backlinks and some writers may not be too pleased with you or your website. When I founded download-tipp. de, my goal was to create a website where people could find high-quality software. So I decided that the site visitor, not the amount of backlinks, is what's important. Only 10% of submitted programs are chosen for the 5 Suns Award ".

Count on is yet another significant issue for download sites. I want to be sure that the program I'm installing is free of viruses such as spyware and trojans. Some download websites have cleverly abused this situation by awarding "100% clean" emblems. I now use the Softpedia one from the download page for PerfectTablePlan.

In theory, scanning software for well-known malware shouldn't be too difficult. Today, I am starting to wonder whether these 100% clean logos have anything to offer beyond the "five star" accolades. Sending a download that contains malware would be dishonest, but it would be the only way to know for sure. I would absolutely be eager to know if anybody knows whether these websites really scan for viruses.

I want to express my gratitude to submit-everywhere. com for making this experiment possible. I was pleasantly surprised by how detailed their answer was. In my opinion, it is a great deal at only $70 when contrasted to the time and hassle of attempting to do it yourself. In the future, I want to be a paying customer.

Note: Addendum.

This tiny experiment has been shared on a number of well-known websites and blogs, including reddit.com, digg.com, slashdot.com, stumbleupon.com, and many more. There have since been a lot of comments on both this blog and other websites. The attention is quite flattering. However, I also resemble Dr. Frankenstein as I watch as my experiment comes to life. I would have spent a little more time explaining the following topics if I had known that the post would be seen by so many people:.

I am not currently affiliated with or have any commercial relationships with the three download websites mentioned. I chose them out because I believe they have a human-in-the-loop reviewing all applications based on emails I have access to (or a manuscript that passes the Turing test, which is a lot more admirable).

I gave each of the three an opportunity to be evaluated in the article. Today, Tucows.com sent me a similar email, but it was much too late for them to publish. I'm not sure whether they read the article first before emailing me.

I have no previous connections to or financial interest in the mentioned automatic submission service. I asked them for help, and they gladly provided it without charge.

The only mentioned service in which I am personally interested on a professional level is my own table planning software.