Matt Cutts, head of webspam department of Google announced the launch of new Google Penguin update named Penguin 2.0 on May 22 2013. This new update hit many websites across world and their rankings took a dip.
Websites, which were affected by this update, had some similar features that caused them their ranking. Duplicate content, blank pages, Keyword centric pages, spam links, sponsored links, paid links, keyword stuffing and others were the reasons that led to the downfall. All these are SEO tricks in order to rank up in the search results but they violate the Google Webmaster guidelines.
There have been times when a user type something in keyword and several results appear, one of these results take him/her to a page which has nothing at all on it. Still that page exists. If a website has such Keyword Centric Blank Pages they would have seen their ranking go down. This will no longer work, Google strictly says, if you cannot provide authentic content to user, you need to go. Remove such pages and re-index your websites.
SEO who were involved in spam linking (it covers a wide range of spamming) like paid linking, similar anchor text, advertorials, spam commenting on forums or discussion forums just to generate links, etc have seen their websites and ranking sink within no time. It has been under scrutiny for a very long time but Penguin 2.0 is especially giving attention to this practice.
Paid links needs to go, they must be "no follow" immediately as there is no alternative to it. For anchor text, instead of using one or two keywords all the time, mix it up and spread them, use alternate keywords or simply click here. Unrelated links are also being punished. Links from spammy website or poor websites should be avoided.
SEO needs to generate natural links that can be done by guest posting, blogs and again social networking sites. Though google does not allow duplicate content, unique content can be posted to article marketing sites to generate links.
Create more Landing pages with unique content in it. If you have a website or blog with limited pages and you are trying to fight for one or two keywords, it won't work now. Focusing on particular keywords is unethical in the eyes of Google and a website or blog must believe in giving authentic content which will gain recognition if it is good.