Can Risky Keywords Have A Downside?
There seems to be a growth in negative talk about various types of web sites and, in particular, keywords associated with those web sites. Don’t get me wrong, many of the web sites in the associated areas are sites operated by honest hard working individuals – perhaps you are one of them.
As keywords become popular, or particular searches become popular, those involved in illegal activities jump on the wagon to try and capitalize on that popularity. The current economic climate has seen growth in areas such as ‘work from home’, ‘lending’, and sites that offer ‘free’ products, services or downloads. The latter is proving to be a real issue.
According to WebProNews (reporting on McAfee data), keywords based on the term ’screensavers’ were most at risk of either phishing or malware attacks. Other keyword areas included ‘free games’ and ‘work from home’.
These statistics could become an issue for those working legitimately in any of these areas. Online users may, over time, become a little wary of using search terms related to those keywords – particularly if the issue receives more in the way of publicity. If you have a web presence that uses keywords that are ‘on the nose’, it may be time for a review of your sites and your keywords to see if there are viable alternatives. Even more worrying is the final paragraph of the post:
People looking to save money, and/or searching for means of additional income should be aware that clicking on results that contain the word “free” have a 21.3 percent chance of infecting their PCs with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware, viruses and other malware.
Even the use of the word ‘free’ could now place you in the suspect category. What is unfortunate, and hard to combat, is the way these criminals work. If we all walkaway from this list of keywords and educate the public about them, users in general will create a replacement set of popular keywords. Guess what, the cyber criminals will be there waiting to jump on the unsuspecting.
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