Google Panda Update question

[sbrault74]

Since the Panda update from December 21st, 2012, some of the keywords I used to rank for are now gone beyond page 20.

What I don't get is that the websites that are now ranking are definitely full of crap and they have tons of unnatural links pointing to them. I've analysed their backlink profiles and most of them have only exact keyword match anchors pointing to them.

So what's going on? Is buying tons of crappy links still a valid tactic? I know it is not but how come thoses sites outrank me? I mean it happened to LOTS of my keywords.

I don't get it...

[TakeshiYoung]

Despite Google's best efforts, there are still a lot of spammy tactics that work and spammy sites that rank. However, in general, black hat tactics do not work for long, as Google's algorithm catches up with them.

If you were hit by Panda, your best bet is to clean up your thin content and work on getting high authority links. Solid links from high authority sites will outrank spam links in the long run.

[Eblan]

Buying links is not a valid tactic for sure. And Anchor text linking (exact keyword match anchors)is dying if not completely dead already too. Maybe those websites currently earn a lot of links by creating a lot of helpful content people re-tweet or share. Or maybe their traffic is too high.

And if they have tons of unnatural links they should be getting penalized by Google.

I'm still learning SEO but I believe if those ranking sites have all those low quality links pointing to them they really shouldn't be ranking at all. I would love to see what others have to say about this.