A hint that you are penalized?

How to verify whether you are penalized.

[Talar]

Since there doesn’t seem to be a way to confirm penalization (if there is I’d love to know), I seem to have found something that could be. When I search for related pages, my site lists at the bottom of the results, which is the opposite of every other example I’ve tried (with the exception of the company that is currently trying to sue Google for low rankings).

Please search for [related:URL] (replace URL with yours) and let us know in case yours is not the first one and you can relate that to a supposed penalization. Does it make sense?

[jetteroheller]

Try

site:your-site.com

If the list is random, and not by importance listing Your start page first, there is a penalty.

[tigger]

with the current mess of the DC's I don't really see how you can use the site:command after all on some of the DC's my sites like others is not showing index first on others it is so does that mean my site has a penalty - right now I think its going to be hard to say anything that would categorically jump out and say you've got a penalty

[Talar]

If I violate Google’s guidelines on one page, do they penalize the entire website or just that page? If they do penalize the entire website, how do they do it? By domain? Eg, I have one domain with several (unrelated) websites as subdomains. Would they penalize the subdomain?

[Talar]

Try
site:your-site.com

If the list is random, and not by importance listing Your start page first, there is a penalty.

Yes that is the case. Does it mean that they are penalizing my start/home page in particular because that is where the violation occurs?

[Talar]

The reason for my penalization (I’m not banned but apparently I’m penalized) might be that I have a word that I repeat often on a webpage. On Sitemaps Statistics Page Analysis that word is not listed within the Common Words. It is as if they removed it to counteract the fact that is repeated multiple times and they also penalize my site.

I have other sites with repeated words but they are non-relevant to the content. Eg, if my website were about “mortgage rates”, it might not be OK to post:

List of Mortgage Rates:
-5 year mortgage rates
-10 year mortgage rates
-20 year mortgage rates

However it might be OK to post:

List of Mortgage Rates:
-5 year
-10 year
-20 year

In the former example the repetitive use of “mortgage rates” could be construed as a violation of guidelines. In the latter example only the word “year” is repeated, however it is not that relevant. In my case (although the words are different altogether) Sitemaps doesn’t list the words “year” or “mortgage” but I believe that the repetitive use of the word “mortgage” may be the reason for the penalization. Does this make any sense? Should I remove the word in question and apply for reinclusion?