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Lets make the list comprehensive and probably more on facts ... or should I say high probability. =)
If your site was removed in the Google directory, (still exist in dmoz) does it mean your site was penalized?
Gray or 0 PR, which is which? and others.
I've probably sent in 20 different spam reports over the last few months when I would find another blatant violation.
The site in question has been using hidden text to get #1 positioning. Almost the entire page has been hidden text.
Every single page on their huge network of inter-linked hidden text pages is now a big grey bar.
I would say that this guy has been hit hard by the big Google stick, and I hope he gets a clue and cleans up his act.
I've been working on my competitive site for over 6 months to try and make sure the content would be worthy of the top positions, and it really bugged me that this guy was cheating his way to the top.
Wooohooo!
If any of you out there are using hidden text, you better hope I don't stumble across your sites.
There's been talk of how long a penalty should last but not a definitive answer from googleguy - I would suspect a 3 month ban minimum with maybe longer for bad spam techniques.
Some say to ditch the domain and start afresh, others have said they managed to get back in with a clean up and re-inclusion request.