And here we go again, with another Google Algorithm update.
First it was Panda, and now it's Penguin... (Next it will be giraffe or some other zoo exhibit) but nevertheless about the name, Google is once again cracking down on those sites with 
spammy and worthless back links.
While most of us probably won't have to worry too much, other may see a drop in your rankings and if so, you may need to do some quick maintenance and find out why. IF you have ever bought links or used a link farm that spreads your site to numerous other sites for instant back links, you may be in deep doo-doo here.
Google likes the natural back links; one from here, one from there, different anchor texts, tags, alt images, image links, comments, responses, shares and posts and while all this is natural, having 3,000 links all from one source or with the exact same anchor text may shoot up a red flag for Google proders.
While it's good to have a variety of hyperlinked texts back to your website, it's not so good to have them all the same. For instance, if you only blog on ActiveRain and in your side bar you only have one link leading back to your website that says: "Winthrop Real Estate"and you never change it or it's not in any of your posts, before you know it, you'll have 500 
back links from AR all with the exact same anchored link. Google may start to count this as fishy.
It's OK to have your keyword in your main title, heading and content but linking back to the same page, over-optimizing and spamming the page with keywords is a no-no.
While one good quality back link is worth 100 or more poor back links, those menial back links can add up and having a variety of linked texts to go with them can make a difference. So while we all can't obtain a back link from a .gov or .edu site, we can alter our back links with a variety of texts, phrases and keywords. Always be checking on your keywords too because what people search for changes each year.
It may be time for a back link overhaul.
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