Does Google have a pr=1 penalty?

[Rogue_62]

Ok, here's one that 's perplexed me for a while...I had a site that was #1 on Google and Yahoo for it's target keyword phrase. I linked it too heavily, and had identical link lists on some other sites, and the site got buried on Google to who knows where. The page rank went from a 4 to a 1 and has stayed there for about 4 or 5 months....with no traffic coming from Google. With this new dance the page rank went up to a 2. I was just double checking it and saw the page rank as a 0, then a 1, now back to a 2. Does anyone know of a pr=1 penalty? Does anyone have any thoughts as to what is going on with this particular site?

[lazerzubb]

PageRank 1 or 2 is probably due to the update, you get different values because of the update (different indexes is shown)

PageRank 0, is hopefully just a glitch.
(Like msn.com is a PageRank 0 right now)

[nutsandbolts]

Well, if you had a good pagerank before (say 5-6) and now it's a 1 or a 2 on the index page and 0 on the internal pages - it could very well be a penalty from Google. After all, you do admit to linking heavily with that site. Can you remember what your pagerank was previously?

[Rogue_62]

Yes, when my site was #1 on Google for it's target keyword phrase it's page rank was a 4. We held that spot for quite a few months on both Google and Yahoo. Then, Google buried the site (I can't even find it in the search, although if you type in the url it is still indexed in Google) and gave it a page rank of 1. It has stayed a pr=1 for months now. This dance, it has gone to a pr=2. I've never heard of a penalty that lowered your site to a pr=1. I've heard of pr=0 and greybar penalties. Also to go from position #1 to buried so far that you can't be found is rather extreme, in my opinion as well. The site delivers what it promises and is surfer friendly (if an editor looked at it he/she would more than likely approve of it). I did get overly agressive on the link exchange aspect and did take a few "shortcuts" that I regret, however the site should now pass googlebot's inspection and an editor's for the links on it.