Could this be a paid link penalty?

[kitkat]

Hi there,

A site I worked on 8 months ago is still not doing that well, and it has been indexed by Google for much longer that 8 months so I feel it should be past Sandbox point.

For the main target phrase, the index page does not appear as the top page in Google SERPs. An inner page is the top ranking page and only on page 4 or so.

Eight months ago I setup a site wide paid link to the home page. I know some of you think that this is a very stupid thing to do... but a few years before I actually optimized a competitors web site and set up exactly the same link and that site is still top ranking.

Is this what a paid link penalty looks like, ie just the home page--where the paid link is pointing--is penalized?

Thanks for your help + Happy New Year!

[mrcrowley]

Eight months ago I setup a site wide paid link to the home page. I know some of you think that this is a very stupid thing to do... but a few years before I actually optimized a competitors web site and set up exactly the same link and that site is still top ranking.I don't think its paid link penalty because you get penalized for serving paid links on your site. It is yet unknown if you get penalized for haveing paid links going to your site. You should concentrate on a range of relevant backlinks. One sitewide can have little or no effect on your serps especially if the given site has little relevance to your own.

[master_06]

It's no paid link penalty from my point of view because if it is, you'd rather drop more significantly in the lowest pages by now.Maybe there is just something lacking in your SEO efforts and link building efforts.

[kitkat]

I do wonder why the home page isn't the top ranking page though... has anyone else seen this happen?

[debunker]

just do more work on the site as it is, work on getting more links pointing at the pages you want to boost