Hmmm. There is lots of talk about different penalties in Google - there is a -30 penalty, OOP (Over Optimisation Penalty) or the new -950 penalty. The buzz about the 950 penalty is that it hits over optimised sites - sites that have a keyword used too frequently in the anchor text for links, keywords at the top and bottom of a page and all the usual malarky.

Its all kinda interesting - and if you're that way inclined the thread here goes into details:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3246128.htm

There is chatter that it is associated with dismantling the Googlebomb. I've got to say as I was reading around and following threads I particularly liked the MSSA penalty (which stands for "My Site Sucks A$$"). I ran a directory for a while and discovered that the internet is full of brand spanking new sites which have content scraped from other sites - entirely for the purposes of displaying Google's Adsense adverts (otherwise known as Made For Adsense). These sites are beautifully 100% optimised - have meaningful domain names, good file names, h1 tags, body link etc etc - but the content is useless rubbish that has been copied from elsewhere.

So whilst Google is working out how to get rid of the Googlebomb or penalise "Made For Adsense" sites - maybe it has ended up penalising legitimate sites.