johnhh - 3:28 pm on Jan 23, 2007 (gmt 0)

Here's a list of what we have <b>dismissed</b> as factors causing this 950'ish penalty.

Obviously our site only and my opinion only.

1. Titles similar
2. H1 headers equal to title and/or descriptions
3 Page design overall including word density, text length, internal linking structure, number of graphics.
4. Percentage and number of any affiliate links on a single page of useful content ( except those pages that are only affiliate links to products and we don't expect these to get very far anyway as they never did! )
5. Purchased links -we don't purchase links or get involved in link farms etc
6. Index page "filtered" or "penalised" affecting lower pages in subject subdirectory
7. Large amounts of content and pages copied by other sites. There is some copying but we have more pages with no copying than copied that has been noticed.
8. Spammy content wording and boilerplate - as occupiers of the top spots use these methods - we don't and will not as a matter of policy.
9. Overuse of keywords and phrases on a page
10. Spamming in blogs/own blog etc -we don't do this

Think thats all - conclusion none -except perhaps its outside our control due to some external factor.

<Added for clarification>Not all our pages are in this position some are still riding "high"