Planet13 - 9:22 pm on Jan 8, 2013 (gmt 0)

@ netmeg:

Were you Panda'd or Penguin'd?

I know you were asking ME, but since I seem to have a similar problem, I'll answer anyway

My ranking dropped in the March 2012 Panda update and further in Penguin April 2012 (First Penguin). Before that it had been steadily climbing.

It wasn't my home page so much as the second-most popular page on my site (the most popular ECOMMERCE page).

Google replied to my reconsideration requests saying that there was no MANUAL penalty, so any loss of rankings must be due to an algorithm issue.

My internal links DO carry the keyword in the anchor text.

Should I change this?

~~~

A bigger picture question:

Just so I understand: Is there agreement that links to home / other pages should NOT contain the keywords in the anchor text?

Should navigation bars (which appear on EVERY page) NOT contain keywords in the link? Or is it just "in content" links that should not contain the keywords?