I got a website under google penalty for some months after loosing the database, when I restored it back it was with less posts and those pages that should have content were blanks but still with INDEX, FOLLOW metatag. So from the 1 position the website was thrown to the 5-6 page for its most important keyword after a month. To correct the problem I added NOINDEX to the pages that had no content, removed all the links that were linking to them, created sitemap with the current valid pages. However google is still keeping my website on the 6th page for its primary keyword and bad in serps. We respected every rule of google, no buyed links, spam, etc, except the error with the pages. Any idea what else can I do to accelerate this recovery process? Currently I see I had left 17 pages indexed, site:website.com, also it should have around 2500, as it was submited in sitemap. Thanks.
The only way to get rid of penalize is to make backlinks for your website in a steady rate. Penalizing is not related to content of your page or seo of your pages.