Help with what looks like a Penalty Please

Been Page Rank Zero for over a year for no apparent reason

[Jammer]

I run a number of message boards (like this one) using search engine friendly urls (like this one). The forums are on 3 entertainment related topics i.e. Games, TV & Music (can I say this?). I think these are closely related as the people interested in one are often interested in the others. So each page on all three has a link to the home page of all three sites.
Here is where my confusion kicks in and I do desperatly need some help or advice. Two of the three are ranking well PR5 with plently of google referrals, the third has a PR of 0 and has so for over 12 months. All sites are using identical page layout and so I dont believe its anything to do with the page templates themselves. The PR0 site actually has great links from Yahoo & Dmoz both in PR7/8 categories.

Last April I tried something - I banned googlebot using robots.txt and after a month or so the PR went from 0 to grey - then I let googlebot back and sure enough a month later I have nice green PR. But this lasted about 2 months then bam! PR0.....

Also the PR0 site appears to have had a previous owner many years ago.

If it wasn't for the grreat yahoo/dmoz likns I would have dumped the domain name a year ago.

I am totally lost - does anyone have any ideas? I really am tearing my hair out here (and that won't lasst much longer)

Thanks in advance Jammer.

[troels nybo nielsen]

Is there any significant difference in the number of incoming links to your three websites?

> If it wasn't for the great yahoo/dmoz likns I would have dumped the domain name a year ago.

I don't quite get that. If you get another domain Yahoo and Dmoz ought to be willing to change their links though it might take some time.

[MyWifeSays]

Did the domain expire before you obtained it? If so any links to the site will not count towards PR.

Another possibility is that the domain has a penalty from before you obtained it. You can contact Google and inform them that this may be the case.

DMOZ are pretty good at changing url's. You can move your site, then put a link from the old one to the new with a message that the domain has changed. Let DMOZ know about this ('update url', then if nothing happens after a month follow up with an email to the editor of the category).

If your Yahoo listing is paid then they should change pretty quickly from what I've heard.

[wanna_learn]

yeah,
change of url at dmoz/yahoo is sometime very qickly entertained.

[MS_Excel]

DMOZ are pretty good at changing url's

Sounds like there is *another* DMOZ out there?

[quotations]

Must be.

The one I know about will remove your listing if you ask for it to be changed.

[Jammer]

Thanks for your advice peeeple,
In the end I sent an email 'pleading' my case to google.
Go a response already (from 2 responses already 1 from what appears a human) that my question has been sent to engineering...

I will keep this post updated as we go for any interested readers...

[figment88]

sounds like expired domain penalty. Got that on a site I help my brother with. You go to places like Alexa and it still even lists previous owner.

Don't really care about pr from previous links. We've gotten some good fresh ones, but google still pr0's the site.

We also sent email to google. got back a response that they would look into it. End of story.

[viggen]

oh how can i relate to this, same story a year old this site even shows dmoz category on the toolbar, plenty of links, but pagerank 0. What do i have to do with the previous owner? I don't even know him. I can't find info of a previous existing user anywhere not even archive.org, but still i get penalized. I enquiered 2 months ago Google but, all they say is be patient. Yeah thank god it is a hobby site, but still.. sucks big time.

[scottyman]

has been sent to engineering...

I had the same problem and same response. I think the site was banned because the host company had mirrored the site (using two domains with the same content). Still no resolution after 2 months.