IP addresses

Does Google penalize IP addresses

[whatson]

My site was #6 for its main search term in Google last week. Back then it had a Pagerank of 5. This month it has a Pagerank of 6 and now has a position in the 40s for the same keyword. I havent done any of Googles 'Don'ts' so do not understand why I lost rankings.
Is it possible that the IP address I am using is being penalized?
If not what else might it be that is causing these fall in rankings.
Thanks

[jaytierney]

Join the club, it's the new algo. You aren't being penalized. I had a site drop about 9 pages and didn't change a thing, the only difference being that it went from PR5 to PR6.

[whatson]

It does not make sense though, the site is optimized for the specific keyword. There is no hidden text or links. There is also the keyword in link text from inbound links. It does not make sense for such a drop.
If this is a new algo then I would have expected this site to still rank high. I am sure there must be some sort of external penalty.
Does anyone else have any ideas?

[Susanne]

Maybe you have a lot of competition and they have been working hard on their sites. They might have added fresh content, they might have learned optimisation. Maybe new sites were recently launched. Have a look around you in the SERPs and maybe you will find some more clues.

[whatson]

Thats the thing, my site is more optimized than the competition, and my Pagerank is higher than the top positions.

[Susanne]

Well, if it is the site in your profile and I do a search with the first two real words in the title, you come up as #3 in Google!

[whatson]

No, its another site, its really strange actually. I was trying to position for a two keyword phrase, which I had successfully at #6. However I am now #52. But I am #18 for one of those keyword phrases which is 7.7 million results.

[deejay]

Hi Whatson

As jaytierney said, I don't think you are penalised - you've just been hit by the new algo.

As far as being "optimised", optimised is really about how close you are to what Google says the ideal is, and this month they seem to have said that "less is more".

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