I tried to clarify things a bit more in my comments already.

Yes, I agree that you should not make big changes yet and I also said that you should observe the environment, where you are in, more closely; and have plans ready that are a result of your observations. Observations beyond the usual stuff that you normally check.

There are some actions that can be taken and probably should be.

Google sent out a message. If you are he intended recipient of that message, then you might want to listen. I believe though that the message did not have that many intended recipients and that many more just happened to “hear” it too.

I hope this makes sense, in combination with my previous comments and my original post.

It is too early to speculate what is the ripple effect going to be like. For all you know the current page rank drop is just temporary, designed to give a stern FINAL warning to all sites, either if you sell or buy links

I referred to a case in my post. Here is the link to it again. If you did not sell any links for sure or did anything else to violate Google’s guidelines, use the tools at Google’s webmaster central to make a re-inclusion request. I don’t see that form as admitting guilt, but you have to be careful and don’t just play the innocent and clueless, who actually did or worse, does something that violates their guidelines. You have to acknowledge that you do follow the guidelines.

I would also counter anything in the form that implies guilt or admittance of wrong doing by a clarifying or correcting statements in the comments. You might also want to tell them why you used the console if you did not violate their guidelines. You could tell them that you believe that you got penalized by Google for something they might think you are doing, but what you do not.

This is what I would do, but you are correct in your assumption that there is no good way to contact Google. They say that they notify some webmasters via the Webmaster Central Console, but they only do that in very few cases. They also don’t have a support or customer service department you can call or email.

If you feel uncomfortable with the re-inclusion request form, use the feedback form instead. The problem with doing that is that it does not end up at the right department first like the re-inclusion request would. You will not know when or even if the correct department got your message or not. Not to mention, if they did something as a result of it, or not.

I would hold off with this for a little while though and wait what will happen in the coming few weeks. More information will become available to give you a better idea about your particular case.

In the meantime I would check your site for things that could be seen as something bad like a paid link (even if it is not) by an outsider who reviews the site. Check your inbound links. I would look for links from sites where it is known that they got penalized by Google for selling links. This will allow you to make a much more accurate assessment of your situation that you will know much better what you should or shouldn’t do as a consequence of it.

kevin

If your competitors were not affected and if Google denies that you got penalized by them, then its time to worry and to check your inbound links and prepare yourself to change your link building strategy, if you have any.

I hope that helps.

A: it is permanent
B: it affects your position

The ripple effect can and probably will have impact on innocent sites too. This was also the case when Jagger and BigDaddy hit. I wanted to bring that across as well.

However, you pointed out correctly that I see the PR change in the toolbar as a “shot across the bow” by Google to give webmasters and marketers a heads up of things to come.