Are Links from blogs with person using keyword anchor text a Penguin 2.0 issue?

[MarzVentures]

Hello,

I am continuing a complete clean up of a clients link profile and would like to know if Penguin is against links from blogs with the user including keywords as anchor text? So far I have been attempting to get them removed before I go for a disavow. An example would be the work clothing comment at the bottom of:

http://www.fashionstyleyou.co.uk/beat-the-caffeine-rush.html/comment-page-1

I am also questioning if we should keep any link directories, so far I have been ruthless, but worry I will be losing a hell of a lot of links. For example I have kept the following:

http://www.business-directory-uk.co.uk//clothing.htm

Your comments are welcomed!

[KarlBantleman]

Hi Andy,

To me, that post looks paid for and as the link is not no-followed Google probably thinks the same. If the post is driving traffic then I'd recommend you get it no-followed (this can be hard to describe to a blogger) so that you do don't lose the traffic. I think that 99% of anchor text links in blog posts look spammy because they rarely fit naturally and bloggers rarely use them, saying that, the link in the blog doesn't look too bad but I'd no-follow it if I was you.

I've used Business Directory before because I think it's quite good. It is relevant (because it is a UK website) and as long as it is in a relevant category, it is ok. Directories are often useless though so I would look at industry specific directories rather than the generic ones.

[Kurt_Steinbrueck]

Andy,

The issue with keywords in anchor text is usually a matter of the overall link profile.  If you look at all the links pointing back to the site, do a large percent of them include money keywords?  If so, than you'll want to balance that out either by removing links or getting new links without keywords.  As to how much a "large percent" is, there's no clear figure.  Some would say 25% and others as low as 10%.  The best way to determine that for your site is to just keep reducing the percentage of keyword-rich links until you see the site moving back up in the search results.

Depending on how many links this site has in total and how many of them are either spammy or keyword-rich (or both), you may just be able to ignore them and just concentrate on building good quality, natural links.  If the site doesn't have a lot of links right now, you may be able to achieve the right balance pretty quickly while also continuing to build the site's authority (instead of removing links and potentially loosing authority).