De Chazal du Mée’s (DCDM) website can harm your computer.
Starting this post is quite weird for me in the sense that I don’t really know how to tackle it, what tone to give it or how to deal with it. So I’m setting out to explain that I’m a human being, more than less pacifist and ready to learn and share information and knowledge with people around me. This last statement is the aim of the Web Design Bureau of Mauritius itself even if the targeted audience is really small. I however have a big problem with the Mauritian mentality. People cannot be honest enough and contact you simply asking for an information or a review or whatever can be their needs in terms of project management, SEO or design. So to all who don’t know how to write a mail here’s a template:
Hi,
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris lacinia arcu ac lorem vulputate euismod. Donec tempus ullamcorper facilisis. Phasellus orci augue, malesuada et luctus at, consequat ac odio. Proin et elit sed dui sodales luctus. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus ac felis euismod lacus suscipit commodo. Integer ac augue purus, vel viverra nulla. Ut volutpat ultricies volutpat. Vestibulum commodo imperdiet elit, ac posuere tortor faucibus at.
Best regards
Insert your signature here.
Friendly tip: being polite gives you extra points!
Explaining things to you dear reader.
I know that a lot of my regular readers must be wondering what I’m talking about here. Let’s get to the root of things. Last year I used the DCDM example to illustrate my article on what Mauritian companies were missing on the web. Fair enough, this has had some positive impact (I’m sure) on how this major Mauritian company saw its own online presence. This would explain why, nearly everyday over the past 2 weeks, somebody has been trying to attract my attention to the DCDM issue.
The problem with all this is that (and this meets the first part of my post) the person or persons DID NOT have the humility of sending me a mail or using the contact form available on the Bureau to ask me to do a review of their site (at least that’s what I’m thinking it is) or to write a sequel to the previously published article. No! This person or these persons has/have been spending his/their time making the same query on Google for nearly 13 days. Is that stupid or what? Proof:
Along with that, an in depth analysis of the IP address, strangely from the same C class domain over the whole period, analysis gives more than guilty info from the Google user. Proxies anybody?
Letting time run by.
At first I stayed on my position of not saying anything about this because one of my core convictions is that if people did communicate, a lot of our everyday problems would be solved. As these queries have stopped since this week-end I’ve stepped out to really see why someone would have spent all this energy trying to inform me that I should maybe give a look to the DCDM website. Which I tried to do this evening but…
… and it’s a major BUT.
The most astonishing thing happened. I tried a Google search for DCDM. The idea was to look at their website and also catch up with the previous article’s position in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) to see that it does not do too much harm in DCDM’s rankings. But, as The Beatles put it: “Hey Jude, don’t take it bad…” the DCDM website has gone from being an outrage to the company to a complete ordeal for any user. I don’t know how they coded the thing but Google has blocked it as “This site might harm your computer.” for malware detection.
Don’t try clicking on the “more” results, you’ll get more of the harmful message.
What is going on here is that the whole project is turning into a fiasco having major impact on the Company’s online reputation and, if they’ve got an IT department, they really have to see to it that the people they’re employing do really have the necessary competences. I mean, it is easy and fun to play with Google to leave “Dan Brown” style breadcrumbs to the Bureau but it would be best to spend that time to check the code, the SEO and the compatibility issues of one’s website.
This is it!
I’m borrowing this quote from the late King of Pop. We all have knowledge and work in our fields. The web design field is still young and improving in Mauritius and methodology and standards are core elements that should be inculcated to the workforce. Another thing is that web design projects, and any project in general is lead according to some very humane principles, humility, communication, politeness and dedication. Without these tensions creep in and grow, people lose their temper and the final aim of the project gets out of focus. It is the same for people, especially those you don’t know. So don’t come round on your big steeds to conquer. I’m always willing to help the best I can and you might get something just by asking rather than brute-forcing the whole thing.
How would you have reacted to this situation? Do you think that this show the professionalism of the whole company? Is this the type of company you’d contact if the service ends like this?
About the Author:
Sachin D. Brojmohun has extensive experience in terms of graphic design, CSS integration, usability and accessibility as well as in SEO. More about him and the Web Design Bureau of Mauritius here: Web Design Mauritius.


Twitter: kurtavish
says:
I tried to search for the site too on Google and got the same message. Indeed this is really affecting the credibility of a group like DCDM.
Their very online image is blacklisted by the world’s greatest search engine. So without much ado, I’ll loudly say that their IT dept or the guy/guys/girls who are responsible for maintaining this site is a REAL LOSER!
There is Google Webmaster Tool, and I guess they do not even use this to monitor their site health and status. I hope DCDM management see this and take necessary steps to rectify the problem.
Google will not put this warning message without obvious reasons.
Kurt Avish´s last blog ..The Probability of Alien Life Existence
Twitter: sachindb
says:
I’ve waited some time before answering just to see if there were any more reactions. Indeed, DCDM’s webmasters are currently not improving their group’s visibility online, neither their reputation.
Another thing is that today (16th of March 2010) the whole thing is still tagged as harmful meaning that they DO NOT have real traffic management systems (or do not know how to use or monitor them), otherwise they would already have seen that things are going wrong.
All in all, it relates to what I’ve been preaching all the time: know your objectives and use the right tools!