What are the factors to get penalized by Google?

[yan_yan]

I'm hearing so much about sites getting penalized by Google. My sites are doing pretty good in Google and ranked #1. Last week my sites' rankings went down traumatically. One of my sites is currently in 8th page from #1.

I'm really getting worried. I don't know if I'm being penalized by Google and for what?

Please help. Does anybody know the certain factors why a site can get penalized by Google?

[vitaplease]

welcome to WebmasterWorld yan_yan,

from: [google.com...]

Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
Don't send automated queries to Google.
Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

The first guideline: "Avoid hidden text or hidden links" seems to be kicked in recently as a one month penalty, but this recent "update" is still taking place, so maybe some patience will help as well.

[John_Creed]

Google is currently "broke"... for lack of a better word.

Plenty of people are having the same problem as you. Hopefully they'll sort things out by the next update.