Anchor-text velocity: the spike that precedes a penalty

Anchor-text velocity: the spike that precedes a penalty

Here's the move the aggressive players keep making and regretting: they front-load exact-match anchors in a 4-6 week sprint, rank for a quarter, then eat a manual action.

The pattern you can read off the public profile:
— Pull the anchor distribution over time. Healthy growth is branded-heavy and slow; the spike shows a sudden cliff of 'best [keyword]' / '[keyword] review' anchors appearing in one window
— Exact-match crossing ~15-20% of the anchor cloud is the danger zone the survivors stay under
— Watch for the correction: brands that got hit then panic-build branded and naked-URL anchors to dilute. That recovery scramble is its own fingerprint

Multiple casino and loan affiliates show this exact spike-then-dilute curve in their historical anchor charts. The velocity gives them away before Google does. Watch this space.