How important/unimportant has keyword density become post-Penguin?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Thomas Rosenstand: I've performed several tests, and I have not been able to show any difference when altering the kw density as long as the keyword is present on the URL.
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  Jackson Ertel: Personally I don't think specific keyword density is actually that big of a metric for Google these days. I would still aim for around a 2-4%, however think that synonyms and relative supporting words are just as important when trying to indicate topic relevance.
  I'm not sure on how Penguin would have effected this though, as that would relate more to the anchor text and link quality rather than content (unless you are keyword stuffing). I would have thought Panda would effect density more than penguin as would be focussing on the quality of content.
  
  Interested in the thoughts of others.
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  Erik Deckers: +Jackson Ertel ;you're right, I meant Panda. That was a typo. :-|
  
  And to your point about synonyms, I know Google is incorporating co-citation and syntax into their searches, so those are becoming more and more important. I just don't know whether and how they're still using keywords.
  
  +Thomas Rosenstand, would you say that keywords in the headline are also important? Or is Google taking their cue from the URL?
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  Thomas Rosenstand: +Erik Deckers ;On a scale of 10:
  
  Keyword prominent in title: 10
  
  Keyword prominent in headline: 7
  
  Keyword in URL: 3
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  Jackson Ertel: Personally find keyword in URL to be a heavier factor still than 3/10, more so in page URLs than domain as from my experience. The EMD update focussed on primary domain level rather than page level.
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  Thomas Rosenstand: Well... You can make any crazy URL rank - but not without a proper title .
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  Jackson Ertel: Sure... But as far as SEO relevance EMD URL still holds a reasonable weight, especially at page level.
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  Ashish Ahuja: Keyword density is no longer relevant, your keyword should appear atleast once on the page to make your page relevant for that keyword. If it is in any special formatting like bold, h1, underline etc it makes it more important but otherwise keyword density does not matter in any send now
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  Jackson Ertel: Really? Once? I don't believe keyword density has much impact at all, however would not go as far as saying having it once is enough for it to operate as a keyword for your page. 
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  Victoria Auburn: I've been advised, that for most sites it should be 3-5 times per 500 words, including alts, and meta, not including title. 
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  Aaron Watters: Agree with most of your results so far, I'd also rank them in the order of Page Title, Heading, desc, URL and then density. I try to use 3-4 different combinations of a key phrase but have found rankings (depending on the market) to still rank without mentioning the key phrase in content at all.
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  Justin Y: I don't think keyword density is as important as it used to be. I think keeping your focus on the readers is more valuable nowadays. 
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  Ashish Ahuja: +Jackson Ertel just search "bleach episode guide" without quotes on google you will see the site bleachepisodeguide.net on first page. Just see what its keyword density is. Go Figure! btw, this is 22K exact search phrase
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  Michael Baggelin: Keyword density is not as important as using synonymous words and mix them to create better readability and read float and widen possible search phrases ;)
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  Jackson Ertel: +Ashish Ahuja, sorry but that proves nothing to me. Keyword density is extremely high in your example as density is relative to other text and that exact match phrase is absolutely everywhere. Sure body keyword volume is low but keyword density on the page is extremely high.
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  Ashish Ahuja: +Jackson Ertel So that means you agree that a page without any content and with high keyword density can also rank as proven in my example. Also search for "SEO Blog" and on first page is http://searchengineland.com which does not have "SEO Blog" in neither content nor meta tags or title and this is ultra competitive term.
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  Erik Deckers: +Ashish Ahuja ;the reason Search Engine Land comes up for a search for "SEO Blog" is probably due more to co-citation, which is a new algorithm Google is working on. SEL has talked about SEO and about blogs for a long time, so Google knows that the site has those topics, but doesn't need to see the keywords the way it used to.
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  Justin Y: +Erik Deckers I agree. 
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  Jackson Ertel: No sorry +Ashish Ahuja there are far too many variables for that case to hold any weight. you have to be able to isolate variables for any test to be sound.
  
  The domain history, authority, alt text, EMD, Headings etc etc directly effects it and due to all these variables, no that site doesn't prove anything re keyword density.
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  Ashish Ahuja: I agree searchengineland was too wrong an example to refer here. I will lookout for other examples about low or no keyword density like the "bleach episode guide" example which has less no of variables
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  W.E. Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:20:22 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/how_importantunimportant_has_keyword_density_become_postpenguin