Does Google have a pr=1 penalty?

Ok, here's one that 's perplexed me for a while...I had a site that was #1 on Google and Yahoo for it's target keyword phrase. I linked it too heavily, and had identical link lists on some other sites, and the site got buried on Google to who knows where. The page rank went from a 4 to a 1 and has stayed there for about 4 or 5 months....with no traffic coming from Google. With this new dance the page rank went up to a 2. I was just double checking it and saw the page rank as a 0, then a 1, now back to a 2. Does anyone know of a pr=1 penalty? Does anyone have any thoughts as to what is going on with this particular site?

Rogue - there is a certain penalty in Google that starts off with PR0 and then after a few months climbs to a higher PR (usually 2 or 3), but with all internal pages staying at PR0.

I would say your site is still penalised. The fact that the PR is changing may have to do with the fact that the dance is still not 100% complete.

Gringo.

The weird thing, Gringo, is that it has never had a pr=0. It went from a 4 to a 1 and stayed there for months. Just today, for 1 time when I checked it, the pr was 0. Now when I check it and have others check it the pr is 2. Because it went from position #1 for it's keyword phrase to buried so far down that I can't find it, if it's there at all, I know that it was penalized. However, I'm puzzled as to why the page rank was 1 instead of 0 or greybar. Also, now that it has moved to a 2 (I did change the site months ago to ensure that it was not breaking any of google's rules) is this a sign that the penalty is over. I'd like to link to this site from some of my others, and get other folks to link to it too. However, I don't want to send to a penalized site, nor do I want to ask others to send to a site that could possibly be a "bad neighborhood."

Id wait for the dance to finish, as gringo said. Then you should know for sure.

-Josh

I have a site with the same PR1 penalty, so yes it can exist.

I think it is down to the fact that it's in the Google directory - that seems to account for an increase from 0 to 1.

It's recently been taken out of DMOZ - when the Google directory updates this site will go back to PR0.

Does your site have a DMOZ link?

Gringo

Yes, my site is in dmoz and is in Yahoo. I'm fairly convinced that 2 is it's new page rank. I'm also thinking that it was penalized (which was the purpose of my posting to see if any knew of a pr=1 penalty). Possibly it was penalized to a 1 because it was listed in dmoz and on Yahoo? This dance was very good to us and our link partners. If the penalty on that site is lifted, and we saw large increases in page rank on lots of our sites and our strategic link partners' sites, and the some of the sites with newly increased page rank are pointing to the site we're discussing, that could be why the pr went to a 2. I don't know why it wouldn't go back to it's original 4, but maybe over the next few months. Also, it showed 1 click from Google for the last 2 days...which is better than nothing, but a far cry from the 6,000 per day that it used to get. Thoughts? So there is a pr=1 penalty?

I thought a pr1 meant a new page that was only indexed once. And a zero was the penalty. Then the grey wasnt indexed at all. But i could be wrong, it has happened many times before. Because all of my new pages (just created) are pr1. Does this mean im being peanalized?

-Josh

Just to clarify to all ...

There is NO direct relation between PR and penalties in as much as you can have a PR0 site that is not penalised and a PR4 site that is.

Granted, a penalised site is more likely to have a low PR, but it can be any of the low numbers.

Gringo.

Not at all. This discussion is strictly about sites that were doing well for an extended timeperiod, good page rank, good placement, then it all went away. Either thru a penalty, or losing links, or whatever. New sites will have a greybar until Google spiders them. Then they may start out with a pr=0 (a totally white bar) until they get enough good links pointing them to move up the page rank scale.

Gringo, that's actually what I've been asking. So you're sure that a site can be penalized and still have a pr greater than 0 or greybar?

Absolutely certain of it.

I've had a penalised site with PR4, which went down to PR3 and then PR2 when it lost the DMOZ link. It's got the DMOZ link back again so when Google updates its directory (which depends on how soon DMOZ gets its act together), it should get PR3 again.

Gringo.

So Gringo, in your opinion, because my site has gone to a pr of 2 does this mean that the penalty has been lifted? Can I safely link to my site without worrying about linking to a "bad neighborhood?"

Rogue - post the URL or send me a PM.

PR2 doesn't necessarily equal Penalty.

Gringo.