Can some keywords be penalized and others not?

[masterwebman]

I have a client who has seems to have disappeared when searching for the most popular keyword in his business niche. But when searching on less popular keywords, his company comes up on page 1 or page 2. The keyword in question is very popular and cost upwards of $40 in adwords.

He has two websites. The 2nd site is for a sub niche of his business main business. There is one page which is identical, although the name of the page is different. Could this be the cause of a -31 or 950 penalty. If so, would it only effect the major keyword phrase?

Searching google site:example.com -- lists every page.
The site has been optimized carefully, but not overly optimized

In summary, will google not return results for some terms but allow others?

[potentialgeek]

> Could this be the cause of a -31 or 950 penalty. If so, would it only effect the major keyword phrase?

I got hit with a 950 penalty on my main site that affected the top keyword for the industry. I've recovered from the penalty against many of the other primary keywords, but not the top one yet.

> The site has been optimized carefully, but not overly optimized.

Google may have a different definition of overoptimized. Top keywords get more Google scrutiny and some sites get kicked down even though it's not necessarily a specific 30/950/other penalty.

p/g