Penalised or Pandalised?

[Jez123]

Would you consider a site penalised if, when searching site:domain.co.uk the index page appears not ist but 4th in the last? The resources page 1st!

The main page dropped from page 3 for the main SERP to somewhere in the 100's about a month ago. One of the secondary pages replaced it at about page 6.

Is this the long paw of the panda or has my site been penalised? I can't think of a reason why it might be. It's a secondary, backup type site that I put up when Florida wiped out my main site all those years ago. It's content is unique - it does share a link to the main site though.

[tedster]

In the past, SEOs considered it a sign of a penalty when the domain root wasn't #1 on a site: operator query. Google never said that, as far as I know, and recently it seems like it isn't always the case - but it does seem like a "rule of thumb" that something is wrong.

There are all kinds of Pandalyzed websites that still show the domain root at #1 - so it isn't a sign of Panda. Coupled with the large ranking drop you described, it sounds more like a penalty to me.

[walkman]

This happens on my main site as well since June.
I rank for domainname.com (#1), domainname (#1), and 'domain name,' (#2, until recently was #1) . If I add a 'site:domain.com keyword' the index ranks #1, but for a plain site:domainname.com search it's on page 3.

Let's just say that I don't like it.

On edit: It now happens to one more domain name of mine, but traffic tripped since Panda, and this site didn't have this problem last time I checked. This particular domain has the index on #5 and is definitely not panadalized, or if it was I wish all my domains were pandalized ;)