Photo-A-Day #2724

There is no Malware on BenSpark.com. If you braved the big red warning screen of shame then you are reading this post and I assure you that you are safe to visit BenSpark.com. Here’s what happened. On Friday morning at 6am I went downstairs to use the TrekDesk Treadmill Desk to do my morning workout and blogging. I went to the usual places and saw that one of my friends Jennifer Leet of The Dirty T Shirt got the malware warning on her site. I then learned about my friend Justin Germino of DragonBlogger also go hit. Eventually we figured out that the common denominator was the IZEA Ad Block that we all had on our blogs.

Now, I owe a lot to IZEA and the team there. When I first started making any money on BenSpark.com I was working with IZEA. I got my first speaking gig at an IZEA event and Ted Murphy himself redesigned my blog. I’ve even visited the IZEA offices many times. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened. An advertiser placed malware code on their ad and a ton of bloggers all got slammed by Google at the same time. It has been maddening to try and get everything resolved. I have the red message of shame and if you look up BenSpark.com on Google there is a message saying that this site might harm your computer. Ouch! So I have been stressed and depressed about this for the past few days. I don’t even care that I might have lost out on income (I make pennies from this site). What really bothers me is that I’ve got a ton of reviews in the pipeline that I want to get out on time including another contest in addition to the Waverly and Magic Seashell one.

The whole situation is really well documented over at Victor Salazar’s site Metallman’s Reverie. Since we started this issue Justing and Victor have been able to get their warnings removed. Jennifer still has hers and I finally got the option for Google to review my site again. So I hope that you are reading this and my blog is now warning free. It has been Malware free since the message appeared.

The photo is of some Pumpkin Muffins that Allison made. She topped them with Cream Cheese Frosting and also added raisins and dried cranberries. I brought a bunch to work and the 3rd shift crew scarfed them up and declared that they were the best things that I had ever brought in. Good job hon!