Slightly interesting...
In a thread about google webmaster relations, Matt Cutts referenced the "950 penalty" and said:
annej, regarding the -950 thing, I'd watch this video I made:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...71648913#1m42s
Starting around 1:42 into the video is where I talk about this.
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http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/013473.html
"Matt Cutts of Google Comments on "-950 Penalty" as "Over Optimization Penalty""
http://groups.google.com/group/Googl...3f856edc10ec4/
"The points I got out of it.
...
-overly seo'd sites
-don't listen to what SEO forums say
-don't optimize quite as much
Which seo methods are the trigger? Link exchanges, Keyword density,
Header usage, interlinking, pagerank hoarding, nofollow abuse, uniform
anchor text, common link schemes? I don't know.
But he does concentrate on "on your site" so I'd think the answer is
still on the site, perhaps an examination between an SEO'd site and
one that is ranking but obviously put together without SEO in mind
would be good (gov or edu sites for example) "
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Nothing dramatically new, but I thought it was interesting that Cutts used the 950 term, and mentions "overoptimization" as being the cause.