Google: In 2009 We Selected Only One Of Your Anchor Text When...

Back in 2008, Moz published a report claiming the first anchor text counts - meaning, if you have a web page that has two or more links going to the same page, but the anchor text of those links differ, Google would pick the first anchor text and ignore the ones in the past.
We covered that back in 2008 and then SEOs began debating the validity of the study. Later on Branko confirmed the claims, questioning the scientific nature of the other studies.
Now, Google's Matt Cutts comes out with a video saying in 2009, Google may (which means did, imo) have picked one of the anchor texts and not counted the other. He did not say the first, but it is likely the first. First how? First in source code or based on skipping the navigation. That is unsure, but watch the video:

Either way, SEOs like to obsess about these things - Cutts says, don't.
It changes and he clearly didn't check to see what Google does now, in 2014.
Forum discussion at Google+ and Twitter.

Google May Be Pushing Out A New Update: Possibly Penguin?

I am seeing very early signs of another possible Google update both based on chatter at the WebmasterWorld and in other forums and social media spaces. I am also getting private data shared with me by those who are tracking this closely.
Update: Google tells me this is not Penguin or any spam quality control change.
The feeling is that Google is testing a new Penguin refresh and that it may be rolling out slowly. Or that it might be something else. So you know, we had a Panda 4.0 update last week, and then last weekend (before Panda 4) we had a Spam algorithm update. Prior to that we reported on tons of ranking shifts which Google denied despite all the signs of an update.

Google Hits eBay With Manual Penalty In Search Results

What really happened to eBay dropping in Google’s search results this week? A source familiar with the situation tells Search Engine Land that Google hit eBay with a manual penalty this week.
A manual penalty is when a human being at Google reviews a site and decides that it deserves some type of slap. Previously, it was assumed eBay was hit by the Panda 4.0 Update that rolled out this week, where a wide-range of sites were with with automatic penalties.
That might also be the case — eBay might have been hit by Panda in addition to a manual penalty, which was reported earlier by Re/Code.

Google Webmaster Tools Adds Fetch & Render By Device Type

Google has announced they have added a new feature to the Fetch as Googlebot tool in Google Webmaster Tools. Now, you can see how Googlebot renders the page.
Instead of using the Fetch as Googlebot to just see an output of code and HTML, Google will show a visual representation of what Googlebot sees. It will also show you errors on what resources Googlebot was unable to access, preventing them from fetching and rendering everything on the page.
Here is the new “fetch and render” button on the Fetch as Google feature:

Google Begins Rolling Out Panda 4.0 Now

Google’s Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they have released version 4.0 of the Google Panda algorithm.
Google’s Panda algorithm is designed to prevent sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results.
But didn’t Google stop updating us on Panda refreshes and updates since they are monthly rolling updates? Yes, but this is a bigger update.
Panda 4.0 must be a major update to the actual algorithm versus just a data refresh. Meaning, Google has made changes to how Panda identifies sites and has released a new version of the algorithm today.

Those Google Ranking Shifts Are Not A Google Update, Google Denies Any Algorithmic Changes

Over the past week or so, there has been a lot of various signals across the search community that Google’s algorithms and rankings were updating; so much so that people were bracing themselves for a major Penguin or Panda-like algorithm announcement from Google. Google never made the announcement, and so I asked Google if anything was going on. Google told me that nothing was going on, that there is nothing going on at their end that would result in what is being reported by the community.

How to Avoid Getting Slaughtered by Penguin 3.0

According to Google, Penguin 2.0 only affected 2.3% of English-US queries. That sounds like a low number, but in the scheme of algorithm rollouts, it was the third largest to date. It wasn’t just queries that received a jolt. The unleashing of Penguin 2.0 impacted web traffic of thousands of sites. Webmasters reported reductions in traffic of up to 90%, which basically crippled businesses and halted online revenues.
Today, we may be on the verge of another major algorithm upset: Penguin 3.0.
But don’t worry; I’m here to share some news about what’s going on with Penguin and to show you how you can prepare yourself.

What number Penguin is this?

 

Google’s Matt Cutts: Over Time Backlinks Will Become Less Important

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said in a video that backlinks, over time, will become a little less important. Matt did say that backlinks in the Google ranking algorithm still have many years left in them.
Matt explained that Google is focusing a lot now on working on ways to determine if a web page is meets the expectations of an expert user. They do this currently by looking at the links to the page, the reputation of the site and pages and the quality of the content on that particular page.

Google Inorganic Links For "DoFollow" Links

Google's Eric Kuan from the Google spam team posted a response to one webmaster who said a competitor is spamming them with bad links and asked Google to provide examples of some bad links.

Eric did so in the Google Webmaster Help thread by showing a few links.

I always enjoy sharing these public examples because it gives those who have never received an unnatural link warning an idea of what links to stay away from. In this case, the webmaster is persistent about those links not being acquired by himself but a competitor trying to sabotage him.

The Head Of Matt Cutts Tells Us The Body Is Important Too

In a magical video where Google's head of search spam, had his body removed all to make a point that the body of a page's content is really important.

Yes, Matt actually removed his body, in a way to show just how important the body is.
The head alone, while important also, is not enough, you need a good and fit body to go along with your good and fit head.
In short, title tags, meta descriptions, and the rest of what you put in your header on your web pages are important. But so is the body content and you need to make sure both are high quality, unique and useful.