Site dropping in rank even through there are more backlinks being added

[BobGW]

Hello,

One of my client's sites is ranking lower than he should. This happened when we took off backlinks (20 little blogs, several site-wide paid links. It really dropped the site, but it had to be done. Since then we've increased his # of root domains by 10% through white hat link building in his non-competitive niche, and rankings are still poor. I know that's not much in the way of added backlink value, but we're working on it.

My question is, how have the recent (and coming) updates possibly effected us. We want to take the remaining problem areas off right away, but another drop in traffic is not a good idea. Even though the blogs (see below) have no backlinks of themselves, they cause drops when taken off)

He still has

-20 little blog backlinks w/ a quarter of them being exact match anchor text.
-1 sitewide paid link - an image,  exact match alt tag anchor text
-1 non-site-wide paid links that is an image near the footer, exact match alt tag anchor text.
-3 links on a domain, this one looks fairly editorial, but there are a bunch of paid links on that page. Changing to non-exact-match  anchor text
-2 links on two domains that look completely editorial with no other paid links on that page. non-exact-match anchor text

-70 backlinks total with about 1/3 being problematic.

How does this site look in regards to updates and when to take links off without tanking our site even more?

Thanks.

[TakeshiYoung]

I wouldn't remove any links unless you've determined that a site has been hit by Penguin. The way you can do this is by looking at the traffic history for the site, and see if there have been any drops that correspond to Penguin updates, or rankings drops that correspond to Penguin updates and the anchor text being optimized.

Otherwise, I would leave links alone, as any normal site will accumulate low quality links, sitewide links, etc. Just focus on having a strong & balanced backlink profile. 70 links is not a lot, and leaves you more vulnerable to low quality links throwing off your profile.

[BobGW]

Thanks! Should we change all of the anchor text though?

[ToddFosterSEO]

Actually if you feel some of the links you have created in the past could be problematic in the future and you know they are the type of links that have caused other sites a problem then I would remove them.

Penguin 2.1 has affected Businesses who have used bad link practices a long time ago. I would say it is better to be safe than sorry and fix it now before you do get hit. It would be harder getting out of an Algorithmic penalty.

That is my opinion anyway