Answer : First of all, rest assured that there is almost nothing any of your competitors can do to get your site penalized. The thumb rule search engines follow is if a spam activity can be outside your direct control, you will not be penalized for it. No amount of links from link farms or nothing networks or spam submissions to search engines can hurt your site. This is something that is outside your direct control. The trouble usually starts when you start linking back to these link farms or nothing networks because this is something you can surely control. When you link to such nothing spam sites, it becomes evident that you have engaged in artificially increasing your PageRank or link popularity using dubious techniques. Of course, as you said, you haven't used these techniques.

There are other possible reasons for getting a PR0. Sometimes, the Google Toolbar may have a snag or the PR values database is misreported by Google servers. Check from another computer to see if the Google Toolbar shows the same PR. If the Google PR database is corrupted for your site, then it usually gets sorted out in their next PR update, which happens every 4-5 weeks. I would wait for a couple of weeks to see if the PageRank is restored before jumping to any conclusion or taking a drastic action.

It is good that you are running a link building campaign to promote your site and that you are sensitive in selecting only good link partners. However, do keep in mind that while at the time of selection, a site may fit your criteria of having limited number of links on their pages but at a later stage, they may add thousands of more links on their pages so as to make it a link farm. I would check each site I'm linking to periodically not just to ensure the pages still have only a handful of links but to also check if the links to my site still exist.

While there is no sure-shot way to have your PageRank restored if it is actually penalized, you can thoroughly check your link partner pages and clean up the links to offending sites and write to -email-. Sometimes, you do get personalized attention and advise.


Answers by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected and recognized search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. For more advice on search engine placement, subscribe to his 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.net