Udi Manber, VP of search quality for Google, sat down with Popular Mechanics for a rare interview and issued some insights into the state of Google search today.
The article deserves a read in itself, but some WebmasterWorld members particularly liked some of the statements about Manber's emphasis on keyword density and how Google rolls out tests (at least with regards to algorithm analysis):
I wish people would put more effort into thinking about how other people will find them and putting the right keywords onto their pages.
I’ll give you an example of something that came last week. We were evaluating a certain algorithm that adds diversity to the result. We did live experiments, which means we launched the algorithm to a very small percentage of users and then see how that compares to the result without the algorithm.
The results we show you are based not only on what we know of the Web, but also what other people have searched for.
Furthermore, forum members were happy to see that the algorithm changes have no relationship to Google AdWords.
All in all, very informative and useful, and forum members welcome the insights.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.