In late December, we reported about a possible Position 6 Google Penalty. What that meant was that many people noticed their number one or two rankings all of a sudden dropped to position number 6.
Google's Matt Cutts denied such a penalty existed:
Hmm. I'm not aware of anything that would exhibit that sort of behavior.
But you never know what was put into the algorithm that would make Google behave that way?
In any event, folks over at WebmasterWorld, starting around message number 3550215 on January 16th, have noticed that for many of their keywords hit by the number 6 penalty (or whatever you want to call it), noticed they were back at number one! One such data center showing the "pre-number 6 penalty" results was reported at 64.233.183.107. But many are now reporting that the number 6 penalty is now back and their number one rankings are again lost.
Aaron Wall posted How I Got My Google Ranking #6 Filter Removed but maybe he was looking at a datacenter that had "pre-#6 penalty" results also? Or maybe not?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
