Thanks Ben. That's a great list of things to check. I did check the search pollution and whois history. I didn't think to check the email reputation - oops!

Thanks Ben. That's a great list of things to check. I did check the search pollution and whois history. I didn't think to check the email reputation - oops! Thankfully, I'm not planning on sending much email through it anyway. I've met Don a few times and I actually pinged him a couple days ago via twitter but haven't heard back from him yet. Perhaps you can forward him the link to my post? Part of the reason I blogged about this was in hopes that Google would reassess how they're handling their verification process.