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Can over-optimized anchor text from a previous SEO still suppress rankings in 2026?

Looking for some input on a specific situation.

We have a key landing page on a client's site that used to rank well for its main keyword, but has been steadily dropping since around August 2025 and hasn't recovered since (except brief spurts). A competitor with a lower Domain Rating and far fewer backlinks is consistently outranking it.

After digging into the backlink profile, I found what I think is the culprit: the previous SEO specialist built a large number of links with exact-match anchor text. Around 200 out of 267 backlinks (roughly 75%) use the exact target keyword as anchor. Most of these come from link directories and link farms.

This is the only page on the site with this issue. The rest of the site ranks fine.

My question: is disavowing still a viable option in 2026, or does Google now just ignore low-quality links without penalizing for them? I know Google has said they're better at ignoring spammy links, but the ranking pattern here — combined with the anchor distribution — makes me think something is actively suppressing this page rather than just ignoring the bad links.

For context:

- Domain Rating: 46 (vanity metric I know, but just to give some context)

- Page has 267 backlinks, 181 referring domains

- Competitor ranking #1 has DR 35, 150 referring domains

- The page briefly hit position 2 after a new site launch in Dec 2025 (switched to Webflow), then dropped back to page 2 after few weeks

Would you disavow in this case, or is there a better approach? Is it worth trying to balance out the backlink profile by building more quality backlinks with different anchors?

submitted by /u/CaptainWhiplash
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from Search Engine Optimization: The Latest SEO News https://ift.tt/El3FvVZ
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