My website was recently penalized in Google for what I believe to be excessive cross linking and state pages created for reciprocal linking. I previously ranked either #1 or #2 for the most sought after key phrases as well hundreds of other phrases pertaining to Sarasota real estate. Me and a several other Realtors were given a "Google hand job". In other words Google did not change their algorithm but specifically hand picked a number of websites to penalize. Many speculate that we were given a -30 penalty. It looks as though they handpicked numerous Advanced Access and Real Estate Webmaster customers. All of the sites that were affected still show up the search results but usually no better than the 40th position. Even if you search Google for my name you will see that I am no where near the first page.

Matt Cutts from Google indicated that they don't like the excessive reciprocal link trading that many Realtors participate in as well as the state pages that "clog up the internet." Be careful with your state pages and reciprocal linking efforts. Perhaps Google will update their algorithm to devalue useless Realtor reciprocal links but right now it looks like they are doing it manually.

If you have been penalized the good news is that it looks like it may only last for 30 days.  Many Advanced Access users seem to be coming out of the penalization period. If you were penalized your best move might be  to erase the reciprocal links and ask for forgiveness from Google via a reinclusion request.