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PR0 Penalty ¦ How long? Maybe forever?

How long does a PR0 Penalty last?

         

djgreg

7:54 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi,

I would like to know how long a PR0 Penalty lasts. Could it be that the site will never get any PR, so that I should buy a new Domain as fast as possible? Does linking from a not-penalised Domain to a penalised domain give penalties to both Domains? Only because I set a link to a penalized Domain? This would be rather unfair, wouldn't it?

Greets
greg

bobriggs

8:04 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



First make sure you really are PR0. That's a different subject.

My PR0 domain was one of the first, and it has held that position proudly ever since. It was also one of the ones with the +20 penalty, if you're familiar with that, around July 5 or July 6, 2001.

I've made changes here and there, but nothing can help it, so it seems. So the answer to your first question is that there are domains around that got hit initially, and have not recovered since.

I do have a domain that links to the same PR0 domain that I mentioned. It has not been hurt yet. It's been up since April or May and linking to the PR0 from the start. No problems so far.

This would be rather unfair, wouldn't it?

Yes. But nothing's fair in love, war, and PR.

nancyb

8:16 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I, too, have been sitting with a penalized domain since last summer. Had I known back then that it probably would never come back I would have gotten a new domain.

If this just happened with this update or last and you can determine what it was that actually incurred the penalty, I would fix it immediately and watch for the Sep or Oct update to see if the penalty was lifted. Otherwise, it might be prudent to start over again - unless income isn't a factor and you just love watching and waiting ;)

NeedScripts

8:19 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I had one domain that had PR6 but *maybe* due to panelty its PR went down to *0*. Now the PR has increased to PR2 for index page and PR0 for all other pages. I think, this is just another way of Google to keep webmasters quite.

Hopefull they will remove such panelties in near future.

makemetop

8:31 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)



I've gone through getting the +20 penalty a year ago, then PR0 which was lifted in March. I then got a PR3 for my home page and PR0 for internal pages. Month by month this has edged up with the internal page penalty now completely lifted (I think), I even have a couple of internal pages at PR6. However, my home page sticks stubbornly at PR5 despite some excellent incoming links. So I'm not sure that there still isn't some lingering penalty a year after it all started! But I have recovered enough to show that you can get back from a PR0.

What caused it originally? Some ancient (2 year old) cross linking (I think). I had to go through a whole load of domains I'd pretty much forgotten about and sort the mess out. Then it took about 2 months for the beginning of my rehabilitation!

bobriggs

8:31 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'm seeing more and more PR6 sites or posts of PR6 sites that don't really get down to PR0, just PR2 or something, or a PR5 that goes to PR1.

If you remember the +20 penalty, that wasn't pagerank, that was just a plus20 in your serp. For example, if you were in the top 1-10, you could expect to find yourself on page 3, from 21-30. That's why it was called +20. You could give NFFC your search term, and he could tell you the domain that you owned. Amazing. I'd love for my site to get that +20 again. Much better than PR0.

For a low ranker like mine (although it got to PR4) it's stayed at PR0 since. It would be hard to determine, but now I'm thinking there's a PR/3 (read PR divided by 3) or something out there.

All speculation anyway.

kneelsit

9:05 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Joining the club/:) or rather :( I too would be happy to go back to a +20. Have been trying for over 10 months now and still only PR 2 for index and 0 for internal ones. Got rid of mirror sites, cleaned up all my links, sent about 12 emails to Google (various addresses)with only auto-responses.

As I have been getting NO HITS from google sources these past months thought I might try the "index re-boot" someone said had worked for a number of their sites. (i.e. excluding googlebot from ALL your pages for 6-8 weeks.)

Now where was that forum thread??

mack

9:08 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Well I went from PR6 right back to PR0 :(

startup

9:17 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



djgreg,
Are you refering to the site in your profile?

bobriggs

9:38 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Off topic. But since you started it startup, I just had to try it. I turned off automatic redirection, javascript, everything. To try to keep it from redirecting me.

so I had to use one my own tools. Never used flash, but can you redirect using flash?

[added]
OK, I see, disable plugins also in opera.
Answers my own question.

GoogleGuy

10:08 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



As others mentioned, first off you may not be penalized. For example, the site listed in your profile (djgreg) doesn't have any penalties on it. That's the case with the vast majority of so-called "PR0" penalties--they aren't penalties at all, just a case of not being able to crawl your site (or not having the resources) for this crawl.

Some penalties expire with time, and some are permanent. I believe one load of penalties is set to expire next month, for example.

lazyz

10:10 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I corrected my PR0 domains... re-corrected my PR0 domains... after three index updates... I gave up on my PR0 domains... bought new domain names and stopped my spamming! I'm back in the index as strong as I ever was and enjoy my highly directed Google traffic. I believe my spamming had to do with crossing linking... You never know unless Googleguy tells you. Google just doesn't give up that information. There are many ways to spam. Keeping your site clean and spam free is also easy.

bobriggs

10:24 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



GG I hope I'm in that load! ;)

nutsandbolts

10:34 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Some penalties expire with time, and some are permanent. I believe one load of penalties is set to expire next month, for example

Cool! :)

I've one penalty that's lasted over 10 months but 2 others have crept back to a fat 5 and 6 through their own steam (I think - the 'Plex/GG may of helped 'cos they are kind like that...) They took about 3-4 months to return..Repeat: NEVER CROSS-LINK - NEVER CROSS-LINK!

But I've also had a site with a 0 pagerank because it missed the deep crawl and just got lightly skimmed by the GoogleBot for that month. I think I finished and uploaded it on the 14-15th.

From what GoogleGuy has said, you have to try pretty hard to get a real, 100% All American Google penalty. Most of the time it's just a blip....Unless you're as stupid as me, of course..ahem.. ;)

[edited by: nutsandbolts at 10:37 pm (utc) on Aug. 26, 2002]

nancyb

10:36 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



GG, I know you can't give away the farm, but is there any hint you could give us about what might be considered a permanent penalty?

Sure hope I'm in the bunch to be reprieved next month, too! It was great to see my site back for those few days at the beginning of this update.

dantheman

10:49 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



nutsandbolts - I'm trying to get a better understanding of crosslinking. Is that 2 domains with links on every page to eachother, or 10 domains all interlinking?

kira

10:51 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I had 200 sites hit with PR0/penalty during the May 2002 update and they have not recovered. I have since moved on to a new server, new domains, new IPs, etc. - and the newer sites are doing great!

nutsandbolts

10:58 pm on Aug 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



It's more then 2 domains - more like 10-15 sites linked together at the bottom of every index page. Very Dangerous! Yes, it may work for a little while (1 week? 2 weeks?!), but once Google spots it (and they will) - BOOM! You're out... This thread [webmasterworld.com] has more on it...

kneelsit

12:35 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



GG. If you do a check on www2 or www3 and find that there are still exactly the same results showing as for www does this mean that no action has been taken to remove a penalty?

Namely no backward links being shown?

I have thoroughly cleaned my whole site links. mirrors etc. way back in MaRCH but for some reason Google still seemed to be picking up on an old /~widget site that was mucked around with by my previous server (FAILING TO RESOLVE CORRECTLY) and may have been the main reason for the original penalty.

GoogleGuy

5:22 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



kneelsit, were you a heavy zeus user?

dantheman

5:50 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Thanks N&B. I just went to zeus' website for the first time in 2-3 years. It's amazing they're still hawking their gear considering it gets hammered by Google. I'm so glad I didn't sign up for it at a time when I knew far less about how it all worked.

NeedScripts

6:20 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The web site of the company I work [ url on profile] got hit by PR0 more then a year ago now. At this time it is PR2 for index page and PR0 for all other pages. We cannot change the domain[company name & other reasons] and were hoping that Google would remove the panelty. Cuz, if I recall correctly, about an year ago - it was for once involved with Links Topics for about 1 1/2 week, but I think that was enough for Google :(

I believe one load of penalties is set to expire next month, for example.

I hope our site is within this batch :)

[edited by: NeedScripts at 6:50 am (utc) on Aug. 27, 2002]

NFFC

6:30 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



> I believe one load of penalties is set to expire next month, for example.

Great news!

>kneelsit, were you a heavy zeus user?

He was Hope you don't mind me answering kneelsit, but he has said sorry :) Certain software have a pretty good sales pitch, just the sort of stuff that a busy inventor would "fall for".

DanJohnson

7:45 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am a sinner, I have sinned...

50+ domains, all with their own content (some with too little, some with more than plenty) and a decent design, but the fatal error of a page on each site with links to all the other sites.

This month, blanket PR0, 1 or 2 on all pages of all sites.

I'm 70% sure that the 'links page' was causing the problem, though it could possibly be a combination of that and using related sites as links in a secondary navigation panel.

I have now removed all the links pages and tossed them in the river. Unfortunately for them, they floated and have since been decreed as witchcraft - now they face being burned at the stake.

I hope that this stern but barbaric course of action will earn my sites a reprieve in the coming months.

starec

8:21 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



> How long? Maybe forever?
Penalties are a part of Google algo, the more uncertainty there is about them, the better for Google.

Reading Googleguy's haiku I see he understands it pefectly :) :


Some penalties
expire with time
some are permanent

mayor

9:55 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



atarec >> Penalties are a part of Google algo, the more uncertainty there is about them, the better for Google

In the short term, maybe. In the long run, I disagree. There are a lot of very intelligent, creative and energetic people hanging out here and when they're left guessing why their site got trashed they are motivated to move up the SEO ladder two rungs at a time. They learn to build their defenses on every front imaginable, then mount an assualt from the rear.

If the SE's were really smart, they would offer a query for a website to see what, if any, penalties are lodged against it. Then webmasters would expend their energies removing the offense rather than getting more creative in the "new optimizations" department.

nutsandbolts

10:17 am on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I think you're right mayor - but there is also an awful lot of people who knew they were skating on thin ice when they used various dodgy techniques to improve their search position rankings. I'm one of them. I got my 10 month slap. And you know what? Since I cleaned up my mess in January my rankings are better now then ever. Hard work does pay off and most of the shortcuts to beat the system don't do anything but hurt you in the long term.

The guys behind Google must chuckle everyday at people's desperate attempts to get higher in the index.

Now, for those who used Zeus or other link exchange systems who really didn't know the dangers with Google - then I do feel sorry for them. And as GG mentioned before, the removal of more penalties next month will hopefully help tons of Mom and Pop Web sites affected.

djgreg

3:28 pm on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi there,

at first I have to say, that the domain I refer to is not the domain in my profile, because it is a search engine with @dult content. The URL is Snipped. I am sure , that the domain was penalized because I (think) I know why I got the penalty. Before I got PR0 I had some hidded links (CSS) on my sites. I think this was the cause of the PR0. But I have learned and have cleared my sites of absolutly every hidded text and other tricky stuff.
I would really be happy to know if my penalty is permanent or not, because then I could decide to take another domain.
I would be really unlucky if I have to change the domain , because I have about 1000 Relinks spread on the web.

greg

[edited by: NFFC at 3:36 pm (utc) on Aug. 27, 2002]
[edit reason] No URL's please, especially @dult [/edit]

mayor

3:34 pm on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>>the removal of more penalties next month

The land of PR0 is like the inner city. All the professionals have already taken flight and built up spiffy new homes and factories in the suburbs.

The old, the lame, the weak and the sick will marvel at the metamorphis that surrounds them when the PR0 prison gates are opened ... but for them it will be too late.

Darwin calls this process evolution.

kneelsit

5:21 pm on Aug 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Quote :- kneelsit, were you a heavy zeus user?

I had been up till October last year but then got rid of the whole directory when I heard about Link farms, wrote to Zeus software people and asked them to take down any links to me also all other Zeus type site I could identify.

Since that time I have set up my domain on a new server altogether and have only a limited number of themed reciprocal links to sites with PR4 or higher.

I have written to all the addresses at Google telling them what I have done (through ignorance at the time) and that I had cleaned it all up. I realise that Google is probably inundated with such letters - but it is frustrating to be still in a penalty situation almost a year later. Mine is only a small 2 man business and this has hit us extremely hard.

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