Does domain name have penalty?

[davewray]

Hi, I purchased a domain name a few months ago, created a nice site, but it still has PR0. I haven't employed any "tricks" or spam and have followed Brett's 26 step plan very closely. Is there a possibility that I purchased an expired domain name that had a penalty on it? Is there any way of finding out? Thanks for your replies! :)

Dave.

[Shak]

what does archive.org show

are you in the index, and do you get googlebot paying you a visit?

Shak

[Quinn]

You could try the Wayback machine to see there was anything shady going on in the past.

If everything is clean now you could send a reinclusion request to Google.

[davewray]

Thanks Guys, but I'm not sure what I'm looking at when I go to archive.org When I type my URL in it shows me that someone had it in 2001. There are three links. Two of them are to a totally different site and the other is to a seller of domain names. It doesn't say anything at archive.org about whether they got my URL banned or not? Since 2001, I'm the first to have gotten it.

Yes, I am indexed with Google. And yes, WAY back in April Googlebot came to visit, but I have not seen him since! :( It's been over a month since I've seen any sign of Googlebot...

Reinclusion? Why would I need to resubmit my site to Google? Thanks for the replies! :)

[davewray]

Does anyone have any answers to my question above? Thanks! :)

[Shak]

you could try this:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

could be worth reading...

Shak

[Quinn]

Reinclusion? Why would I need to resubmit my site to Google?

Sorry I thought you were saying you had been banned....

So you can find your site by searching for the domain name?
keywords?

So the problem is that your buried in SERPS?

May also get an idea about the domains history by using Alltheweb's URL investigater....

[davewray]

Thanks Shak and Quinn...Yep, I bought an expired domain :( but it expired in early 2001! That's almost two whole years after I bought it. I read those threads that you posted Shak, but it didn't mention anywhere if Google penalises expired domains no matter what. ie. whether spammers once owned them or not.

Quinn- I am listed in Google...I come up both when I type in my URL and for my main keyword phrase, even though it is #62 (for a very competative kw mind you!). If my site was penalised, would I even be in the index? I don't have a grey bar, just a white PR0 bar.

It would be a pity for me to have spent over three months of hard work on this domain only to never have it move up in the SERPS.

Back to my original question though. My site hasn't been hit by Googlebot in over a month. When it was first indexed by Google April 8, 2003 Googlebot visited at least 2 dozen times. Does the fact that Googlebot has not visited in over a month mean that my site is penalised...or is it just a consequence of this latest whacky update? :) Thanks for your answers guys! :)