Website Review: HowLifeWorks.com

While perusing the internet in search of the next questionable advertiser, I ran across an ad block on FoxNews (one of my favorite culprits for sleazy third party advertising – though Fox competitors can be just as bad). The block looked very similar to the AdBlade ad bars I’ve seen for on there for years. Even though the ads had a familiar look to them, this ad block, however, linked mostly to HowLifeWorks.com. So today I’m going to look into this site a little deeper to see if it’s a scam or legit.

The first thing to look at is the whois data on howlifeworks.com. The current registration was created in 2004, however glancing at the Wayback Machine, it appears that there wasn’t any content until 2008. Oddly, many of the articles on the front page in 2008 are still on the front page of HowLifeWorks.com today.

The ad block was one red flag. 4 years of the same articles on the front page is another.

My next step was to read a few of the articles on the site. The first one I chose was titled Saving Money While Dining Out. While the article certainly wouldn’t win any awards, it was dated just last week and appeared to at least be an attempt at some real content. Poorly written, but an attempt at least. I read the article on July 5, 2012 and it was dated June 28, 2012. I was skeptical of that date, however. Because the articles in my Wayback Machine search were all there 4 years ago, it was my belief that the date was fake. So I took a snippet of the article and did a Google search on it. This search revealed the same text on other website. I found the same article on this forum from 2010 and there is some indication that it was written in 1988!

This is the ad block seen today for HowLifeWorks.com.

Three strikes and you’re out HowLifeWorks.com, and at this point I really don’t need to go any further with my investigation.

It’s clear that HowLifeWorks.com is nothing more than a front for phony, glowing “reviews” for the products being advertised. Take a look at the ad block that began this review, which I have posted on the right. There are a total of six ads in the ad block.

• Ad 1 – Goes to a “review” of ARO 2012, which is a glowing endorsement, and links to a product page.
• Ad 2 – Goes straight to Pimsleur. I used to like Pimsleur until they got into bed with seedy third part advertisers.
• Ad 3 – Goes to a fake review of Test X180, which has employed advertising methods already discussed on this site.
• Ad 4 – Goes directly to Quibids.com. I’ve already discussed penny auctions in great detail, such as here and here.
• Ad 5 – Links to a “review” of Sensa, which in turn sends you to their site. It’s just a big ad disguised as a review.
• Ad 6 – This one links to an “article” entitled How Cruise Lines Fill All Those Unsold Cruise Cabins, which is really just a big ad for VacationsToGo.com. All I have to say about that is that cruise scams are absolutely rampant right now.

Every article I read today was dated June 28, 2012. I almost guarantee if I check back later, the dates will be different.

So it appears that HowLifeWorks.com is nothing more than a website that peddles shoddy and questionable products via poorly-written phony “reviews” of these products. I found little original content of value on the site.

I can’t in good conscience end this article without giving props to this blogger, who blasted HowLifeWorks.com a couple of years ago.