Potential causes for dropping -50 across the board?

[textex]

Site has been consistent in rankings for quite some time. Today we are minus 50 across the board.

What are all potential causes? Is this a manual or algo penalty? Would adding an Iframe be a cause?

[tedster]

We had a discussion about keyword links to Home last December, and the thread is still open for further posts. Different people are reporting different experiences in there, and not just ideas. It's worth a read if you haven't already. One of the variables noted is whether the keyword links are in place at the site's launch or added later.

Experiments in keyword rich links to Home [webmasterworld.com]

[misterjinx]

Hi misterjinx,
"c) check linking homepage from internal pages."

Could you explain how problems could arise from linking to homepage from internal pages?

As SEOPTI and wingslevel noted your site could be affected by a OOP penalty, not necessary a -950 :-)

I think Google has not only more sophisticated algos than Yahoo and MSN, but also the power of hardware to elaborate a lot of datas in a time near to real time.

[SEOPTI]

Interesting observation regarding the -50 penalty and PR:

Domains (sites) which are -50 penalized are not allowed to aquire a higher PR than 3.

[tedster]

Have you seen pages with a higher PR get dropped to PR3 after they get a -50 penalty? If so, does that happen only at "PR Update time", or is it immediate?

[SEOPTI]

Yes, definitely, -50 penalty sites drop in visible toolbar PR, but not immediately. The drop can be seen with every PR export.

I can now say it's a domain-wide (not only site-wide) penalty, this penalty prevents the domain to receive PR from ALL sites on the web.

Probably a multiplicator is used to reduce the incoming (visible and real-time) PR.

[bobbonew]

Excuse my ignorance, but I honestly have never heard of a -50 or -950 penalty. Can somebody clarify please?

[Whitey]

If you get a $10,000 check from adsense your website is going to get a once over from the spam team. It is very easy to sift through all the sites that get big Adsense checks because there are not that many.

On the editorial side of things ......

how was your traffic and trophy kw positions ?

Many things will likely trigger an editorial review like the random tax audit. Stand out and it's just a matter of time before you will be audited for sure.

[tedster]

never heard of a -50 or -950 penalty. Can somebody clarify please?

This current discussion is trying to understand the -50 penalty. The -950 penalty [webmasterworld.com] is is the longest running discussion we've ever had on Webmaster World - now at 26 months and still going. Watch out - the original name is a bit deceptive.

A summary for the -950 penalty discussion is in the Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.