How I Got Banned, Then Unbanned From Technorati
Last Sunday, I got an email from Gustav Mörtberg of Diablo Source pointing me to a post from Earners Blog call Trick to Increase your Technorati Rank. The author explained how he went from 40,000 to about 4,100 Technorati rank in just one day.
I used Xenu to fully spider & grab all the URL’s from sites I knew had a Sitewide link to Earners Blog. I loaded all the URL’s into a text file & got rid of any externals. I then loaded the full list into the pinging tool that comes with Blogger Generator, fire the Technorati ping server into it:
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Then just let it run on the entire list.
This technique increased my link count from 888 to 3,100 within the space of around 60 minutes.
Blogger Generator is a get rich quick program that allows you to create a ton of useless Made for AdSense (MFA) blogs on Blogger.com. The $97.00 program also comes with the ping tool you would need to do that above Technorati dance, but there was no way I was going to pay $97.00 for it. However, if you’re evil 
, you will be able to figure out how to get the ping tool for free.
With dreams of rocketing to the Technorati top 100 overnight, I grabbed a list of all blogs linking to John Chow dot Com, loaded it into the Pinging tool and blasted it away at Technorati. Now, Technorati doesn’t seem to mind if you send them a few pings (maybe even a few hundred). However, they seem to get upset when you try to send them 17,000. The results: Technorati banned my ass.
Getting Unbanned
At this point I was thinking, “Maybe it’s just a software glitch?” *Classic denial* Doing a Technorati search for johnchow.com resulted in the following message:
Huh?
There are blogs, and then there’s whatever you just typed in. If it’s a blog, we don’t know about it. Maybe you made a typo. Or maybe it’s a blog that doesn’t exist. Maybe you don’t exist. (In which case, please ignore this.)
At this point, I decided to play dumb and send Technorati an email asking why my site wasn’t ranked anymore. I stressed the fact that I am a longtime Technorati user, promoted Technorati, run the Technorati favorites button, etc., and asked for their help, because I don’t know what happen! 
The email worked. Technorati unbanned me and restore my ranking last night (which now stands at 259).
This mass pinging had a side effect on blogs that I linked to. Steve at Ramblings from the Marginalized wrote a post wondering why his Technorati ranking went from 90,000 to 15,955 in a day. Now you know Steve. If anyone else saw a huge Technorati increase, you have me to thank!
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend doing the above. I’m not sure at what point Technorati banned my blog. I noticed it was gone at about the 1100 ping mark. If you do wish to try it, then I recommend you keep the number of pings low and ping just top-level domains and not article URLs.
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Trackbacks
- John Chow Dot Com: Review My Blog Linkback Program | Pop Stalin Designs’ Design Blog - February 27, 2007 at 12:10 pm
- the.[ED]ition » My Technorati Ranking Goes Through The Roof - February 27, 2007 at 9:50 pm
- Advantages Of John Chow’s Neighbourhood - February 28, 2007 at 9:05 am
- Beyond the Rhetoric » Got accepted by ReviewMe - February 28, 2007 at 10:46 am
- Is the “Evil” John Chow Gaming the System? - eMoms at Home - Helping Entrepreneurial Moms and Dads Succeed in Blogging and Home Business - March 7, 2007 at 9:46 am
- Beyond the Rhetoric » Is this good news or bad news? - March 7, 2007 at 4:30 pm
- John Chow DOT COM - Where Evil Begins! | Stephen Fung DOT NET - March 7, 2007 at 6:42 pm
- Is your blog banned from Technorati? » @ YugaTech | Philippine Technology News & Reviews - March 8, 2007 at 11:10 pm
- Commenting Your Way To The Top « John Chow dot Com - March 15, 2007 at 5:49 pm
- the.[ED]ition » Is Technorati Broken? - March 17, 2007 at 6:35 pm
- Technorati Hates PayPerPost? | Stephen Fung DOT NET - March 18, 2007 at 4:01 pm
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I guess Technorati needs their own spider to crawl sites that don’t ping back…
That would get rid of the need for any shenanigans.
What’s also funny is that my old (no longer exists) blog also jumped to a ranking of about 17K !!!
so that’s how you spell shenanigans!
Quick thinking paid off big, John. Sounds like you got away with murd… well, not quite that, but something big. I just saw Steve’s post a few minutes ago and was going to ask you if you’d heard when Boom! there it was on your hp
Better you than someone less deserving
If the glove don’t fit…
I’m guessing that if Technorati got a ton of pings tonight (because we all read this post), they would know something is up and not unban us!
Stephen’s website was missing from Technorati this morning too.
Same issue perhaps?
Was it? I did not notice.
John, when you talk about “spreading the love” you don’t kid around!
Yeah! He got my ass Banned! I feel like such an injured Panda right now
THAT’S HOW I WENT FROM 68K to 19K overnight!!!LOL
I didn’t know what the heck happened, but I wasn’t going to go asking questions.
People kept emailing me asking how I did it. Well, now I can refer them to this post
Do you think you’ll be able to keep that ranking John? Not to mention ours?
It’s just one more bonus “perk” for being a top commentator on John’s Blog…
I’m all for these perks unless they result in a firing squad.
Wohoo!!! YOU’RE THE MAN JOHN!
I also had a huge jump, but I agree. I love the perks John, but please don’t get us in too much trouble
I noticed a jump as well, being part of the Clan of Evil has perks!
[...]and asked for their help, because I don’t know what happen! The email worked. Technorati unbanned me and restore my ranking last night (which now stands at 259).[...]
This is another good example showing why you are the root of all evil
Mystery solved.
John at it again. 
I’ve gotten that same “Huh” response and they stopped updating my blog about a month ago. But I sent them an email also and they fixed it within 3 days i think. So maybe you didn’t get banned, but it makes for a better story
I had the same “Huh” message for a few weeks and just recently sent Technorati an email about it. Within a few hours, my site was back and it was being crawled for updates.
I’ve seen my ranking increase from about 77,000 to about 45,000 in the last few weeks as well. I had been thinking that I was making progress with my blog but now it all appears it may have been smoke and mirrors.
Well I think some of that is progress. But the over night jump is John…I thought the same thing…but hey, I take what I can get.
Weird, I didn’t get banned but I noticed that I have a lot more incoming links from John…
Wow that makes sense. I was looking at my own Technorati rating and who was linking in. I clicked on johnchow.com and it gave me the same error you mentioned in your blog entry.
Not it makes sense. I thought it was the result of my sleep-depravation/user-error.
Good tale of woe John
It will be interesting to see how the other blogs that benefited from your “ping of promotion” will decrease in ranking over the next few weeks. At least I’m guessing that they will decrease unless they are prepared for a great deal of work between now and then 
Sadly my blog wasn’t lucky enough to be ravaged by your escapades. 
On a related note. JonhChow.com is no longer a hot community on MyBlogLog.
WTF, what were they thinking!
They are resisting his evilness!
And now you’ll get banned again (as soon as they read this post)
Yeah I noticed you were on their naughty list and I wrote about it in my blog two days ago.
Glad you got unbanned.
Technorati still hasn’t responded to my request to update http://www.2kbloggers.com even though we haven’t done anything the slightest bit tricky or twisted.
How much original content does Technorati produce? How valuable are they, really?
I am on the same boat. Not tricks (at least intentional) but I get the “Huh” when I search for http://ww-success.com. Have sent them two emails over a period of 2 weeks. No response and no fix. This looks more like a bug on their site.
Thanks John! I went from 1,300,000 ish to 135,217th on Technorati . . do it again . .do it again!
John you should make your list of top commentators update weekly instead of monthly!
Noooooooooooo!!!!!!
I would like to echo HMTK…
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Yeah, give the rest of us a chance to spam
John Chow’s Hax strike again! The Robin Hood of the internet no doubt.
The Robin Hood of the Internet has such a positive tone….
We need something more evil…
I gotta say John, I learn something new from you every day! If only you harnessed your power for good instead of evil… muahahahahahaha!
It’s amazing what you can achieve if you know how!
I hope this post doesn’t do you in. Man, I wish I could get away with something like that!
Or you could just climb the chart with hard work like everyone else
That’s what I was thinking!
Like I’ve said before: it’s all about hard work and dedication!
Your honesty is refreshing, John…
Very true, but just look at the benefit to him – how active are the comments on this post?!
Honesty=Good
Ummm, well I guess your banned again since I get the “Huh?” message when I click on your site in my Technorati favorites.
Oh well. I guess I’ll have to put plan B into action now.
Ninjas?
Have you had anymore contact with the technorati guys?
I’m going to wait for this post to go off the front page before doing Plan B. I’m really not too worry about it. Technorati is still ranking me. They’re just not showing it on their site.
John, not only are you a dumb-ass for trying to game this, but you then went an wrote about it on your blog.
Too funny!
Hey, at least he was honest about it (with us anyway).
Wouldn’t this be considered spamming Technorati? At least a gray hat technique…
Whats the chances of them trying to reverse the effects? If they don’t congrats to everyone who got a bump
This is why its never a good idea to have site-wide links to other sites.
In other, related news, because of gaming links such as this, Technorati’s on a crackdown for link-horders. Trust me, it’s simple to figure out who’s gaming the system like this, and they go with ban-first explain later.
Interesting… I wonder if there is a way to do this with Alexa?
Good “EVIL” deed dude any way you were lucky to get back on Technorati. I think the case maynot be true for others
Its all funny and all, but technorati forms the basis of valuations of blogs. Sort of makes a mockery of the value of my blog!!! and a high rank in Technorati seems to be a hollow boast.
So, there is a crack for all the softwares that are ever written and will be written I guess….
Yep, all it takes is time – and a lot of Mountain Dew!
Just a thought…couldn’t you use the new feature in google’s webmaster tools to get all your backlinks. You can even download them to a excel table
Haha, how great to even get mentioned!
Although i am sorry that i did get you in trouble, i only did it with good intentions. I love following your blog’s road to success and i will continue to send you any evil tips i get my hands on!
I noticed a seemingly random jump from 1.7million to 700k that may well have been from you doing that. I was then able to work my way down to the 100k range using the technique Stuart described in the Earnersblog post.
Good Stuff!
Can’t find your blog in Technorati. Maybe they have put the ban back on (or I have mistyped) http://technorati.com/blogs/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.johnchow.com%2F .
Are you sure you’re unbanned? Stephen and I could not find your site listed. Stephen is still banned
Hey hey! Found the pinger and the software for free! Woohoo!
If anyone wants it just shoot me an email and Ill hook ya up! Spread the evilness!
blain . reinkensmeyer @ gmail . com
So let me get this right, you gamed the system and the people who linked to you also got banned? That’s really not fair.
But good job finding the loophole