[spiredigital]

OP here. And not necessarily. You can be "over-optimized" without being spammy.

Over-optimized refers to having your SEO optimized to rank for a very specific, targeted term. Take "trolling motors" as that's the site of mine that was penalized.

Even if I built all my links via white hat, legi methods - but the anchor text of all the links to my home page said "trolling motors" - I'd likely be penalized. That's because in a naturally linking backlink profile, people would link with a wide variety of different words, not just "trolling motors". Because the concentration is so focused, it's almost a guarantee that someone was trying to game the system. Google algorithm updates like Penguin have really started cracking down where's it's obvious the owner is trying to rank for a word by optimizing the links, title, headings, copy in a way that appears dramatically non-natural.

Often, however, spammy link campaigns are also over optimized as well.

Hope this helps!