Can You Tell A Hand Edit From An Automated Penalty?

[peter_d]

Can do you tell a hand edit from an automated penalty. Can't say I knew the answer, but Aarons view makes sense.

http://www.seobook.com/how-know-diff...alty-hand-edit

Some of Google's algorithms give sites a +30 type penalty which prevent the site from ranking better than #31. When Google hand penalizes sites it also tends to look the exact same way, with one exception. When a site is hand edited typically it won't even rank for its brand name related keywords. Assuming your site has at least a few links, I believe most of the automated penalties still allow mydomain.com to rank for mydomain.

[bond007]

If you perform a search with www.yourdomainname.com and you're not in the first position than for sure there is a penalty.