fimoculous:

Don’t Call It A Comeback

Impressive-ish!

We are now four months into the retarded bet, so it’s time to recap this month’s progress…

As you may have heard on Romenesko or trolling @nicknotned, Gawker Media made some basic SEO fixes, which caused traffic to jolt up 18% over last month. (It is unclear how they could launch without proper redirects in the first place. But don’t question genius!)

That places them at approximately where they started before this bet.

And that gives Denton four months to increase traffic by another 13% to make up the ground need to win this bet. Doable? Certainly. Likely? Hm.

In the meantime, the side bet with Rizzo is mercifully over. This month, he lost another $45, bringing the grand total to $403. Word on the street is that he finally has a job, so maybe he’ll be able to pay me this summer!

And finally, for those who can’t get enough of all this chatter about pageview metrics and UX mechanics and search engine sandwich making, Internet Week is arranging a debate between Nick and I about the redesign. Stay tuned….

My unshakeable belief in Nick Denton cost me $403. Oof.