Post Panda SERP placement u-turn

[Johnny4B]

Last week we had three terms for a client dive out of the top 100, they all ranked against a particular page, the three terms where where core words for the clients website ...  strategic to his business. I assumed that it may have been due to the latest update by Google

I assumed it was due to some poor inbound links to the pages (clients re sellers) and a slight abuse of anchor tags.

The terms contained one keyword and two variations, a well know software brand. We ranked as high as number two, continually fighting the actual brands main website., but none the less outranking all other re-sellers.

This week we are now back ranking higher for the main term (outranking the actual brands website) and the other two are back to where they ranked. Obviously I had organised to sit down with the client tomorrow to discus.

Should I bury my head in the sand, rejoice at some fortune and hope the problem is not as bad as I thought, and hope the results stay static going forward ... or is this a chance to rectify those issues I saw with more clarity after the dive bomb of the three phrases last week.

Has anyone else noticed anything similar ? Offer any advice ?

Cheers

John

[echo1]

I wish I had..we have been hit pretty hard as well, lost rankings for 70% of all keywords targeting the Homepage, with all types of anchor text. I would say, if you can do something about those bad links, do it; that shouldn't hurt you but,  I would start building a few strong links as soon as possible too. Going forward, it seems very clear to me that paid links and more than 30 to 40% exact anchor text backlinks will not influence rankings anymore. As far as I can see, there is no real recovery story after this update. If the rankings are where they used to be, proceed with caution, keep building valuable links and keep an eye on your Google Analytics.

Good luck and keep us posted.