"I just sat in on a Google Hangout with one of the Google staff members"

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

• 
  Yasser Mohamed: Hi guys - I know it has been awhile and you have probably missed me, so I finally have another question! ; I was talking to an SEO friend of mine and he said;
  "I just sat in on a Google Hangout with one of the Google staff members - where a lot of us SEO's hang out to see what's happening. Now they don't tell us exactly what's going on but they always drop hints here and there. ;
  
  The main thing that came out this time is that the Penguin update is going to get tightened up even more next time around (only a few weeks away now they said). ;
  
  What this means is that any link that contains the exact match keyword could be either disregarded and not count towards your rankings or even penalise your site. ;
  
  Now with what we're seeing across the board is that this is already happening with a few sites - as rankings are dropping and sites aren't dropping right out. This means the links are getting devalued and not counted. "
  
  How accurate do you think this is? Has anyone else heard these whispers?
• 
  Federico Sasso: Well, I just heard it from you, so I'm one more :)
• 
  Victor Mbazigwe: I don't exactly know how google panda works, but all I know is that google is very particular to quality nowadays not on links. that is how hummingbird works.
• 
  Jim Munro: HI Yasser. :)
  Generally, what you hear from Googlers is more for Google's benefit than for yours.  ;That is what I think anyway, I thinks it's more enlightening and useful to watch and act on what Google does, not what Google says. One person's opinion only.
• 
  Yasser Mohamed: Thanks +Jim Munro that was my impression too, but my friend seems convinced SEO Armageddon is neigh!! ; So much so that he has informed all of his clients that he will be stopping his linking packages. ; Probably not a bad thing but it does seem a bit of a knee jerk reaction. I guess that's exactly what Google was hoping for!
• 
  Jim Munro: As you know, Yasser, I am not an expert but I think I remember meeting his cousin last century. ;There have always been people predicting something or another. On the other hand, I don't think the complexity level has ever been as high as today. I think SEO might be more critical than ever.
• 
  EBS Pest Control Ltd: OK..newbie talking here, but I don't get it..how can exact matches be disregarded? In the context of grammer, exact matches will happen surely?..eg, red buckled ladies stilletos.. All keywords individual or together, all often genuine. How can they be disregarded carte Blanche?
• 
  Devin Peterson: Sure, some links may be devalued, but should never be completely disregarded and definitely not cause "penalties", with exceptions to obvious and large scale spam.. A drop in rankings doesn't mean your site was penalized, it most likely just means its being 'less rewarded' for something that doesn't matter as much.
• 
  Yasser Mohamed: Thanks +EBS Pest Control Ltd and +Devin Peterson . ; I agree, and this is what I tried to explain to my friend.
  Could it be the reason some of his sites have dropped in ranking is due to a recent update regarding to too many ads above the fold? Would a large "flash banner" with photos and not much content above the fold fall into this category?
• 
  Devin Peterson: +Yasser Mohamed ; Yes, "above the fold content" is valued higher than below the fold. This has always been the case but the weight of this variable has probably been adjusted since the "Page Layout Algorithm" (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html)
  
  Although that came out about a year ago... They may have recently tweaked it a bit to decrease below the fold content even more. Especially if that content has been stale for quite some time. IMO, it's really hard to have good written content high on the page (in certain cases) because sometimes it just doesn't look as appealing as a nicely designed flash banner. It's a cache 22 really. I mean catch. ;)