Akismet ban lifted, kudos to their support!

Well, that was fast! I mean really fast. Just a few hours after I submitted my request, Alex from Akismet contacted me, and after several checks and emails back and forth by today's morning I am free! Feels really good, thank you Alex, and kudos to Akismet overall, it's nice to have business with you guys! :)

Does Akismet ban affect Google ranking?

LOL I was banned by akismet. Well, not me personally, but my brand new URL that I created for my main money making page just a couple of months ago and made a redirect - which several previous posts were about.

Funny how I figured this. I did not comment on blogs with this URL yet at all. Never till yesterday. And yesterday I went to investigate my main competitor links - which was prompted by my drop in SE results for my main keywords. Yes, I got a serious drop like a week and a half ago, two keywords went to the second page, and one dropped from 3rd place to 4th which accounted for a total 50% drop of traffic. And yes, my main competitor got ahead of me on all keywords. I am still investigating the reasons for this drop, hence an attempt to figure out what competitor is doing.

So, I went to Yahoo site explorer and took a look at his links. All the first page were blog comments on high PR posts, and I naturally went to comment on the same posts. Yet my comments did not go through! WTF I thought? So I went to one of my own blogs and commented there. Yep, it went directly to spam! OK, so I went to a handful on friends' blogs and commented there and had them rescue my comments from spam. Did not help. I could continue this route since I own quite a few blogs and my friends own even more together, But I just stopped and thought I would rather try Akismet support.

I don't remember making a single comment with this URL, let alone spamming blogs. Been there, done that, don't do this anymore for quite some time, so I am positive it was not my action that caused the ban. Then what? Likely it was my competitor. Dirty stuff, granted. Looks like he is not very picky in his methods. So my second thought was - heck, let me do the same to him! Then I sorta pondered about it and decided to play nice. Like I don't have a proof he did it, only suspicion. I will give him a benefit of the doubt, keeping this incident in mind however.

So I won't spam blog comments with his URL. And I won't try to get off Akismet blacklist with undercover activity - I will just submit a support request to them. I did not do anything wrong, why should I hide? Will see how it goes, and will try to keep you posted.

One more thought however - could it be that this Akismet ban affected my Google ranking? Searched the net, and found another blog post about Google downranking coinciding with Akismet blacklist. Something to ponder about...

Theoretically it should not happen, because this way BigG will promote dirty competition, which definitely will hit the relevance of their search results, yet practically there is no limit to stupidity, so you never know :)

Well, here is the letter I sent to Akismet support:

Hello,

Looks like one of my urls http://XXX.html is considered spam by Akismet. I am positive I did not spam comments. In fact this url is just about two months old, and I even can't remember ever placing a comment with it before yesterday, when I actually discovered it does not go through. I would greatly appreciate it if you can look into this for me.

Thanks and regards, Joshua

The results are here: http://adsense-diary.blogspot.com/2009/04/akismet-ban-lifted-kudos-to-their.html

Redirect 301 status. Ads layout

No changes on BigG. All is exactly as it used to be before the redirect. Now I realize I was hoping changing the url will have enough power to move me up a position or two. Well, no luck, looks like it is not enough with such a fierce competition. Yet every small bit counts, so I don't think this was the wrong move. It definitely proved beneficial in just a bit less competitive area - like a page or two down for the same keywords.

Interesting and not yet confirmed observation on the ads layout. Initially when YB picked up the right config, I let it run for a day, and then added other ad zones. Overall CTR and eCPM fell, but I attributed this to normal fluctuations. Now, in an attempt to squeeze a bit more from the same page I added one more ad zone from another ad provider to this page.

To my disappointment, I saw further drop in CTR and eCPM, not compensated for with the added eCPM. So, I removed almost all ad zones from the page yesterday night. Today I see a serious increase in both metrics. I will give it a couple of days, and then try to switch other ad zones back on. If CTR and eCPM follow, I will take it as a proven fact.

Redirect 301 and hub layout change status update

So far so good, on both accounts!

My main page stays at the upper boundary of its range for the main keywords, and even shortly went to position #3 today for one of them. Funny, it was listed with the old address at that time :) I figured where extra traffic is coming from - I got a rise on Yahoo for a secondary keyword, and now hold position #3 for it. Good result! Main keywords came back to the listing, but slightly lower - at #89. No changes on Live/MSN.

Now, another test I started a couple of weeks ago with the hub layout brought spectacular results, too! Remember, for the first half of February CTR was in the area of 3.5%, and it pretty much was in line with historical average. Now, since I made the change, average CTR for the period shoot up to 7.5%! More than twice, with corresponding change in eCPM. I like it too :)

I like it!

I don't know what will be down the road, but I like how I feel today! I am already having the second most profitable day of all time, and it seriously threatens the previous record, that was set almost a year ago. Right now it is showing $170.63 for the day, with the record being $185.35, and it still has more than 4 hours to go!

So yesterday night YieldBuild finally picked up the right configuration, and now I am enjoying the ride in the full force - CTR about 50% and eCPM approaching $30. Traffic seems to pick up, too - hence the spectacular results. Not sure exactly where extra traffic is coming from - SERPs for the main keywords are still inside their recent range, albeit at the upper boundary. Probably some secondary keywords got a boost from changing url - will try to check with GA tomorrow.

Well, overall I am really satisfied so far. It did not take long, just five days, and there were no drop in traffic at all. And if you are not using ad optimizer you will not feel the transition at all!

This all refers to google. No changes on Live yet, and I got dropped from Yahoo :D