-30 penalty removed after 6 months

[seocolin]

Hi All. This is my first ever post. Had to share this.

I had 4 websites, totally unrelated, given a -30 penalty on Google about 2 years ago. After over a year of redesigning sites and going mad trying to solve the mystery of why they have been penalised, I totally gave up about 6 months ago and accepted what appeared to be a mistake on the part of Google's algo.

Then, yesterday, I noticed they were all back ranking in the top 30 for competitive search terms! Hopefully this is not a blip and they will not return to the dark next week.

As 4 sites returned all at the same time I am hoping this is a mass penalty removal and not specific to my sites. I would be interested to hear if others have experienced similar recently.

[tedster]

Did you have the "classic" -30 penalty? That is, even on a search for your domain name your actual site was #31?

[nomis5]

I have no experience of this but just a note to offer you my congratulations on your success. Possibly you waited long enough for the algo to change and recognise that there should be no penalty. Good luck.

[norton j radstock]

Hi Colin,
Congratulations on this. I had a site given this penalty about two and a half years back, and recovered after nearly 18 months following a complete rewriting with much greater content, so I believe you should be ok.
Good luck for the future.

[seocolin]

Tedster - yes, all 4 were classic -30's with the domain coming up 31 will all other terms.

Nomis5 and Norton J Radstock - many thanks for you congrats. Such a relief and top 10/20 rankings still there this morning.

If I can figure out what might have got the penalties lifted I will certainly post.