On February 11, 2009, we reported Google penalized Google Japan for selling links. It resulted in Google.jp having their toolbar PageRank score drop from a 9 to a 5. Shaun Anderson noticed today that Google.jp now returns a toolbar PageRank score of 8. He said prior to December 31st, it was still a PageRank of 5.

He asked if this means that most PageRank penalties last 11 months? No, I don’t think so – it depends on the situation. But in this case, Google clearly wanted to make a case of themselves and did so. 11 month PageRank penalty is a long time and can set a nice precedent for future cases.

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Toolbar

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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