I have been a critic of Google’s posturing and seemingly indiscriminate awarding of penalties for a long-time.
There has been a ton of speculation around the industry of -20, -50, -60, -100 penalties (for those laypersons this is a SERP penalty that subtracts ranks you should be awarded, so if you normally should rank number 9 for a specific keyword or phrase, with a -60 penalty you would rank number 69 instead). Someone found a site listed in number 61 position with sitelinks, usually sitelinks show only for the first result in a Google search. Rumor has it that these penalties are being applied because of the suspected purchase of paid links.
I have said it before and I will say it again, until I see proof that Google can read a webmaster’s mind I don’t think these type of penalties are fair, or a good businesses practise for that matter. If Google is going to punish websites so serverely because they ‘think’ the owners have bought links then it is going to be really easy to sink the competition. Simply go on a little spending spree buying up site-wide links on some crappy unrelated pharma sites and watch your competition sink in the SERPs.
I better get busy and check my Paypal account so see how many competitors I can afford to get penalized.