We all know that good anchor text is the way forward to good serps. I have seen a strange thing in the last 24 hours. Two sites jumpes into the serps based not on anchoe text, but I suspect on the context of the sites linking in, even with out anchor. I suspect the link algo will change yet again, but in a major major way?
There are many factors that determine the SERP for a website, one of those factors as you said are anchor text, but there are other factors like when search engines are updating their data centers, domain age, and some off page factors like title tags and content.
I too have noticed the same but it is not new. Actually context of sites linking in with you have a great role in SERP. Source: Noticed
Links with relevant anchor text will always carry over more weight than links without, I'll be sticking with it thanks Have you checked those 2 sites ages, are they relatively new? Have you checked all their backlinks? (have they gained a recent backlink, maybe paid text link or high quality relevant one?) Is the competition poor? Have they recently made on-page seo changes? Could be hundreds of reasons.... Google's algorithms are ever-changing but don't discount relevant anchor text just yet.
Yes, this is pretty common, link algo changes happen all the time, I often see my sites climb and drop in serps
Yep, you can really drive yourself nuts watching your rankings every day. Sometimes it makes no sense at all why sites go up and down.
I know, but we get paid to try and decide which way the wind will blow tommorrow. I am used to all the jumps and in and outs, but I can see the wind moving. You heard it here first.