Guilty by association - Google Penalties and Bans

[calebw]

This is my first post, I've been a reader for a long time but now have a quandry which I hope the forum can assist with! :)

Here's the story:

1. I have a recently launched (in August) site that is now in top positions in Inktomi-powered engines for the query 'Mahre Training Center' (the domain name is www.mahretrainingcenter.com). However, the site appears in about 15th place in Google for the same query while other sites that are out of date and that are rougue pages with the company name appear above the official site.

2. The site is very content-heavy and contains no spam tactics. The design team is very well versed in creating sites that rank well for their topics. It is very surprising that the site is penalized in Google but ranks well, as expected, in other engines. Other sites designed by the same team rank very well, especially for their company name.

Here's the kicker... this site is hosted on a shared server that hosts several dozen other sites. Interestingly enough I have seen two other large sites on this server get demoted in Google while they retain high SERP ranks in Inktomi. I noticed the demotions after two key things:
1. A community site, www.EverythingYakima.com, jumped in rankings and then suddenly dropped for the key term "Yakima Washington". Just prior to the drops we had begun to add links to footers of a couple dozen sites we manage. All the footers had the same link text "yakima washington" and pointed to the domain. The majority of these sites are also hosted on the same server. As footer links, the links appear on every page of each site.

2. One site of a partner technology company (www.myhec.com), again hosted on the same server, added content from the EverythingYakima.com web site to its site by pulling from the content database.


Conclusions
1. It seems obvious the EverythingYakima.com web site was penalized because of the unintentional link spamming and content duplication - is this a plausable hypothesis?

2. Could Google also be penalizing other sites on the server because of association with the "bad" site via being on a shared IP?

3. Am I missing something?

Looking forward to your feedback!
-Caleb

[randfish]

Caleb,

I sincerely doubt you are under any kind of Google penalty. Your site is ranked very well considering how recently it was lanuched. Google has been putting a severe damper on newer sites ranking well in the SERPs. I am exceptionally impressed with your progress.

Your concerns about being in a bad IP area are valid, but you appear unscathed. A 15th position ranking is very good and any penalty would almost surely drop you considerably lower. If you're looking to break into the top 10 very quickly, I would recommend some press releases, an extra effort in link building, and a steady dose of whatever you have been doing - it's working well!

Best of Luck

[calebw]

Thanks for the quick reply.

If you'll note the first result for "mahre training center" it is a press release about the launch of the site from the design firm that created the site. That appeared within 2 days at the top of the Google SERP. Why is more weight given to that page than the official web site? It makes no sense unless there are other algorithmic reasons or penalties.

[projectphp]

It is very surprising that the site is penalized in Google
that is putting the horse before the cart. The site is penalised therefore the site is penaluised is circular logic.

Try http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum5/4584.htm and see what you get first.

I don't see why this situation is so surprising. Pages and sites should take a while to rank well. August to now is only 4 months. My advice would be to seek out links from related sites, and perhaps other local content. Other than that, patience is a virtue :)

[randfish]

calebw,

SEOs have understood for a long time that Google has a strong preference for long established sites with many thousands of backlinks. The press release is on a site like this, and thusly is highly regarded by Google.

Don't feel bad. Despite months of effort and thousands of backlinks, when our site puts out a press release, it is always ranked ahead of the actual site for 1-2 weeks. The press release benefits from being new content and on an old, well-established site with a high PR and lots of links.

Google does this because it feels that these sites can be 'trusted' to release quality, relevant information. Your situation makes perfect sense and should be anticipated.