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Aplus.Net Fixes 'Hidden Links' Problem Caused by a Subcontractor

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Submitted by admin on 4/23/2004 @ 4:25 PM

Aplus.Net (www.aplus.net), the leading Internet presence and Web hosting provider to small and medium-sized businesses, announced today that it has completely removed all hidden links from affected web sites.

Less than 1% of Aplus.Net's web hosting customer base had hidden links installed by a subcontractor, hired by Aplus.Net to potentially improve Company's Google search engine ranking.

"We didn't apply enough control over what our subcontractor was doing," said Ivan Vachovsky, CEO of Aplus.Net. "We have changed our procedures so that it never happens again. I would like to thank the online community, which helped us locate and eliminate the problem promptly."

Fortunately, less than 1% of Aplus.Net's customer base was affected. The links have been completely removed however cached copies may contain the links until the next crawl by the Google search engine.

Any effect, both positive and negative, related to the placing of the links is pure speculation. Confirmation of this is the position of Aplus.Net for one of the "optimized" search terms "domain name." Aplus.Net is #400 in Google for this keyword. "We are on page 40 for the 'domain name' keyword," said Michael Nieman, VP of Sales at Aplus.Net. "This is worse than before the so called 'optimization.' On the customer side we have yet to see any evidence of any negative effect. Regardless, we are happy that the issue was spotted and eliminated early."

About Aplus.Net (www.aplus.net)

Aplus.Net is a leading provider of Internet services to small and medium-sized businesses. The company's headquarters are located in San Diego, CA with other offices in Davis, CA, Atlanta, GA and Europe. Facilities in San Diego are over 52,000 sq. feet and include data center and Network Operations Center (NOC). Aplus.Net specializes in providing a complete Internet presence, including domain name registration, corporate identity on the Internet, matching e-mail addresses, web design, web hosting, e-commerce, credit card processing tools, and website maintenance. Aplus.Net is among the ten largest privately held web hosting and domain name registration companies in the USA and is a facilities based provider. The Company owns and operates its own data center and its own ICANN accredited domain names registrar (Names4Ever.com). Aplus.Net has been awarded many awards for excellence including the prestigious Editor's choice award by the reputable technology portal CNET.