Is Google out with a Confession for its Minus 60 Penalty?

May 6th, 2008 | RSS Feed

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It is considered to one of the most dreaded penalties that can be levied by Google on a Webmaster for bad link practices. Known as -60 Penalty, it pushes the website of the penalized Webmaster 60 positions back in the search pages. This penalty is enforced mainly in the case of Paid Links, as they are considered to a be questionable tactic to gather links.

According to Search Engine Roundtable, it seems that Google is finally admitting to use of -60 penalty. There has been an ongoing thread in Google Groups regarding Google's use of -60 penalty, where Googler JohnMu has replied in a most nonchalant way, not addressing the -60 penalty issue directly but giving tips to cleaning up the site from a spam perspective.

In fact, after spending some time at the discussion, you get this feeling that Google is not trying to hide the -60 penalty anymore. Well, at least things are getting a little clearer, especially with all sorts of speculations flying everywhere.

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45272 Responses2008-05-06+15%3A18%3A04Navneet+Kaushal to “Is Google out with a Confession for its Minus 60 Penalty?”

MadisonSEO Says:
May 6th, 2008 at 13:01
I have been hit by this infamous -60 penalty.

I was number one for a semi-competitive term that certainly brought in orders for onver 1 year. I then was given site links in early Feb. About two weeks ago, I dropped mysteriously to number 61, and my "site links" still showed up!

I found some dup content on my site due to "scrappers" I fixed that up and added some fresh new content as well.

I don;t have ANY PAID LINKS, now I may have some links from other domains I own, but it should be undetectable to Google (different Class C's, registrar names, layout, content etc.) they are also related links that I feel should be linked to one other for my customers.

What are all of the factors you or others have concluded cause the -60 drop?

MadisonSEO
Professional SEO Company Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 04:26
It's my first time to hear this -60 penalty. i think those black hat seo should be penalize by this..