I recently posted about how I thought I had a “near miss” with the Blog Skinny widget.

Well, it turns out it was a direct hit on many fronts.
I thought I had removed the widget from my test site.  As a matter of fact, I would SWEAR that I did so.

Yet this morning, I went to the site looking for an article I had posted there… and I noticed that the site’s PR had dropped from a 3 to a zero.

OUCH!!!  Why did this site get slapped?  However, I was on a mission, so I searched for the term and began scrolling through the posts… and that’s when I saw it.

THE BLOG SKINNY WIDGET…. THERE AT THE BOTTOM OF MY BLOG!!!

Well… mystery solved.  (Well, not the total mystery.  HOW IN THE HECK DID IT GET BACK UP THERE?  I checked to make sure it wasn’t there anymore the last time I was there!)

That’s the reason for my precipitous PR drop.  I also suspect it’s the reason I’m getting spam now in the email address I used for the site.

Andy Beard offers a great post on Google Reconsideration or Reinclusion Request  however, I’m going to have to decide if I want to keep the blog there or not.

However, in the mean time, I’d like to ask for other people’s experiences with other spammy widgets.  Is Blog Skinny the only one?  What ones have “burned” your blog.