That being said Google always went on about how almost no other webmaster would be able to harm your ranking but now since they have brought out that disavow tool (info and link here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2648487) I don't believe that is the case. Quality back links are of course the way forward I'm just annoyed at the fact that they seem to think the website name in a lot of links is bad, they should just fix their algorithm to devalue them from the start instead of bringing out tools.
I'm currently running an experiment with Penguin where I disavowed the top two sites linking to my site, AOL stalker, and another. Together, they constituted 20% of my total backlinks. I'm working on the hypothesis that a 20% change in the backlink profile will show some type of result. What do other members think. Do you need more than a 20% change in backlink profile to see any difference? I have a PR5 site with only a handful of keywords on page 1 results. Otherwise, my 800 page site is nowhere to be found on Google.
Do you think the 20% that you have removed were all bad links? I personally don't want to use that tool as the way I see it is the links that I have been getting are mostly natural, there are probably dodgy ones in there too but that for Google to just discount rather than me having to do it for them.
I got into the im game after penguin panda updates and did alot of research before i even built my first site i am unsure if i was impacted by updates but my sites do rank they just take between 1-3 months i did on page optimization and built a steady link profile of exact match anchor text i build them slow but do not use anything but exact anchor text and they start to rank slowly but surely i cannot say how long this will last but its currently working now
Google always (no matter what update they make) want fresh and unique content that will give value to the readers. Looking at that perspective, they want something naturally readable to the human eyes. "Content is King" that is what you should always focus on.