Google is incredibly shady. There’s been a manual penalty in place against my website The Online Slang Dictionary (http://onlineslangdictionary.com) for the better part of a decade. I know this because the data suggested it - and then a Google employee confirmed it.
It would be easy to explain it away because Aaron Peckham, owner of Urban Dictionary, worked at Google when Matt Cutts was head of the Web Spam team, and they knew each other. But that’s incredibly circumstantial. I do know that when I confronted Cutts about the penalty here on HN he lied about it - which does lead one to wonder about his motive.
It would be easy to explain it away because Aaron Peckham, owner of Urban Dictionary, worked at Google when Matt Cutts was head of the Web Spam team, and they knew each other. But that’s incredibly circumstantial. I do know that when I confronted Cutts about the penalty here on HN he lied about it - which does lead one to wonder about his motive.
I’ve written in length about the manual penalty here: http://onlineslangdictionary.com/pages/google-panda-penalty/
Edit 0825 Pacific: I have to work. I’ll respond to comments later. You can also reach out directly - contact info is in my profile.