Could this be a penalty?

I don't know what is going on but on Google, for my 3 word keyword phrase, which is really not competative I am ranked somewhere 130 - 150 position, while the same keyphrase on Yahoo I am ranked 3rd and MSN 1st. Could this be due to some sort of a penalty or is this the sandbox? I do have an affiliate store which uses a dynamic template and I am afraid I might be getting penalized for duplicate content. Or maybe it is really that much harder to rank well in Google? what do you guys think?

 

I think that just reflects the competitiveness of the different search markets. You have so many more sites fighting for that term on Google than in Yahoo or MSN.

 

also if it was the sandbox i doubt you would even have a ranking as high as that

 

A lot of it can also depend on the age of the site. I ranked #1 for some keywords and phrases in MSN very quickly, but the others are coming along slower. My site is only a few months old.

Is it your weight lifting site?

 

Yes it is, and it is fairly new, a few month

 

Honestly, my guess is that it's the sandbox effect. There are a lot of affiliate type stores out there (amazon for example) and i don't believe they get dinged for dup content.

it's a nice site btw.

 

Well the HOT MODELS are very nice no penalities there

But I did not notice many links ..? No doubt good content is a key but I believe that reciprocal links are very important for good rankings they go hand in hand.

 

Yes, I'm not too strong on reciprocal liks at the moment. I'm waiting for the PR update maybe more than anyone else! It's hard to ask for link exchanges when you are a PR 0. Right now I am relying on the co-op for backlinks and SERPS

 

Tell me about it, try submitting to some directories that dont require a recip link, also if your site has good content and you write a very nice email you will get the odd website link to ya