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Have I been penalized

and what do I need to do to rectify it

         

reddevil

4:41 am on Feb 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Have I been penalized?
I cringe when I write this coz I know from hanging around in WW that I have made lots of elementary errors in my webbuilding but I hope that somebody can point me in the right direction to rectify things? I am just an innocent webmaster trying to get a few referrals here and there.

SCENARIO IN DECEMBER 2003
My site used to be PR2.
It had two incoming PR5 links (not related to my business) which were shown as links in Google, and about 4 other links that were below PR4.
I used to get referrals from Google on a number of my pages.
Google had indexed about 10 of my pages.
As I was new to webuilding, I had my site listed on two link farms (although I cannot remember their website address).

WHAT HAPPENED SINCE?
The two PR5 links have disappeared because the site went out of business.
I have started a link campaign and have attracted about 10 links (including two PR5 links) but these do not show yet because Google hasn't crawled since December (not even during Brandy).
During my development, I have renamed some pages but have not 'removed' them from Google (but Google hasn't crawled since and I have not had any 400 errors).
I modified the content of my pages slightly.

SCENARIO SINCE JANUARY 2004
My site has fallen to a white bar PR0.
Google does not show any backlinks (probably because they are below PR4).
I get no referrals from Google (or any other SE) because my site has dropped so low in the rankings.
Google only shows my Homepage as being indexed.

WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?
How would I know if I have been penalized? Should I e-mail Google to ask them?
Why has Googlebot not crawled during Brandy - does it crawl PR0 sites or sites that have been penalized?
Should I resubmit to Google or do I need to rectify things first?
Will Google penalize me for having the link farm entries? If so, how am I supposed to remove them (they are only one-way inward links)?
Do I have to 'remove' the deleted pages?