Shame On CNN

11-22-2006: Cnn.com did a bad thing in the “eyes” of search engine spiders, Google Pidgeon
Rank™ and other indices of web page spamiliciousness: they duped their own content about Yahoo! acquiring AOL, then changed the date for it. I’m a bit of a prig, so before I even knew what was happening, my keyboard was tapping out comments to blogs.marketwatch.com
(page no longer exists). While I’m no fan
of Google, why let a site get penalized for what they warn webmasters not to do in Webmaster Guidelines?

“…the “Quality Guidelines”…outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index.”

One practice you should avoid:

“Don’t create multiple pages, sub-domains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.”

Review of AOL Removal Tools

Also see How to Uninstall AOL.

Edited/updated 12-08-2006.

After I ran tests a month or so ago, I concluded neither Mr. Tech’s AOL Cleaner nor the PC De-Crapifier do a good job of removing files, folders, and registry entries when they uninstall AOL, but I did my tests on a PC with 9.0, OpenRide, AOL’s Safety and Security Center and Security Monitor installed — more crap than either could handle, and didn’t test them until I’d already “uninstalled” AOL using AOL’s own uninstallers.

It hit me later that these tests weren’t good enough to base my results on, but neither cleaner did much better the second time around, so for the tech guys who deleted 2 podcasts about my uninstall and how-to cancel pages after I stopped recommending the PC De-Crapifier (update below), I’m hoping your site won’t be the last one to notice little ol’ mine.

How to Uninstall Any Version of AOL with jv16PowerTools

Last updated 2-27-10 with fresh download link for jv16 PT 2006.

Problem: How to uninstall AOL.

Solution: jv16 PowerTools.

Difficulty Level: Advanced

Uninstalls/Cleans Up After: Any Version of AOL

Good for: XP users only. Vista and Windows 7 users: give jv16 PT 2009 or CCleaner a try.

I’ll be honest: this tutorial is not very quick, so if you don’t have some spare time and a firm desire to clean out every last trace of AOL, see How To Remove AOL with CCleaner instead. Take these steps at your own risk. I’m not responsible for what happens. Bookmark this page, since you’ll need to restart your computer to finish removing AOL.

All visitors running Windows ’98/2000/ME/XP: Before we get started, visit this page to learn how to back up your registry, files, and folders. See this tutorial to uninstall the AOL WAN Miniport after  you’ve removed AOL.

Mac users, please read this advice for removing AOL at Mac Rumors.

Issues for all AOL users running XP, Vista or Windows 7: I’ve had email that some PCs are infected by viruses when removing AOL, so run a scan with the free online Trend Micro tool before you get started. Some versions of 9.0 SE will not uninstall because a process won’t shut down and all versions of AOL may become corrupted and unremoveable by normal means; if that’s the case use my instructions to stop the AOL Connectivity Service from running before you remove AOL. See this (for XP) or this (for Vista) if you can’t find or run the AOL Uninstaller.

This tutorial helps you remove AOL and it cleans up and optimizes your PC.