Former Googler, Andre Weyher, who worked in the Google Search Quality team for two years, was interviewed by James Norquay and the article is pretty revealing.
I am honestly shocked a former Googler would give up so much information. None of it is really ground breaking but some of it is a bit too much to hear from a Googler or a former Googler, in my opinion. So much so, it makes me feel like he is lying.
For example:
Don't put more than 2 commercial keywords in your titles or Google will frown upon it.
Really? Frown upon it?
Another in regards to detecting spammy links:
The commercial vs. non commercial ratio of the anchors.
Did he say that?
A comment on PR:
Not only this but take PR for example, getting a link from a high PR page used to always be valuable, today it's more the relevance of the site's theme in regards to yours, relevance is the new PR.
Okay, that isn't too bad...
Second, don’t dismiss directories completely. I have heard people talking about directories being altogether bad and advise people to avoid them. This is not the case, good quality, moderated directories, or niche directories are still worth looking in to.
Again, this isn't too bad.
In any event, read the interview and do me a favor, don't confuse what he is saying about Google and what he is saying about his new company. People at WebmasterWorld are taking quotes about his new company and assuming they used that at Google.
I am also surprised by some of the typos in the interview but I guess it was just an email interview?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
