Was TechCrunch Penalized By Google?

Joe Hall posted at Threadwatch that Google may have penalized TechCrunch, one of the most popular blogs on the internet.

He looked at SEM Rush and Search Metrics data for the past few months and noticed a significant drop in search visibility for TechCrunch in Google's search results.

Here is the three month chart from Search Metrics:

As you can see, the decline looks pretty significant, but to be honest, when it comes with news sites, stories can hit big one day and have a huge skew in the visibility it sees even in the search results.

TheNextCorner commented at Threadwatch and said if you look at the 2 year Search Metrics report, the recent decline doesn't look bad at all. He said, "but over 2 years, they still look quite good." Here is the chart:

Do you think Google penalized TechCrunch? Is it just less overall searches for what TechCrunch is covering? Less hot breaking stories? Or maybe it was is nothing?

Forum discussion at Threadwatch.