Any Penguin Survivors? How did you make a comeback?

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone could help...

All of my main sites were hit by Google penguin. Panda didn't leave a mark as I believe the sites have great unique relevant content and are updated regularly. The issue obviously lied with the backlinking as they were very anchor text rich and did look rather unnatural.

Anyway, I have tried countless ways to retrieve my original page one rankings but so far no luck.

What i tried:
1.) One method I focused was to totally clean up my backlinks from quality sites and diluting the high % of anchor text links.

While this one focuses directly on what penguin hates, as Google penguin has not updated for months, nothing positive has come of this one yet.

2.) Another one was to do a lengthy redirect, where I spent ages setting up a sister site, positing quality daily content, backlinking, social marketing etc.

This although the hardest effort has given hope. At the start the old site was absolutely no where, after the redirect the sister site went to page four/five. Not first where the original rankings were, but certainly a lot closer.


I was wondering if any penguin survivors could please share their experience and what they did to make a come back?

Look forward to your replies