Google Rankings Similar positions

Hi,

Soi i've been building links with GSA/some paid links (high PR) for a certain search term. I was originally ranking 4th/5th for this search term and one on page 2 for three different sites at different times.

However now i've noticed that both search terms have dropped to page 16 in google search terms, and whats weird about is is that they are all next to each other in a row.

Have they been penalised due to anchor text variation? Also would a 301 redirect to a brand new site change this? However i've noticed these sites still rank on the first page for other key words which are closely related.

Thanks

That's a significant drop, so I would think it is an algorithmic penalty of some sort. If you're just blasting GSA links straight to your site, you can expect to be slapped. A 301 would not rectify the damage if your anchor text (over-optimization) and link profile sucks. Fix that first and see if your rankings recover.

GSA directly to the money site will deliver only short term results, I would track the results for a few days and if there isnt any postive movement, I would abandon the chase

thanks for getting back to me, okay so if i was to change the anchor text (as the majority of back links are actually coming from one site wide link on a website) would this benefit me in anyway?

The weird thing is i've seen other sites who rank first with 88% focussed on one key word yet they're ranked 2nd & 3rd in search results for a similar key word.

Thanks